18 Year old Missing in Oregon

This is sad, another boy attracted by the Film 'Into the Wild". He apparently went off into the 'Wild' with little equipment and very little training.

URL KOMO News Article

Its odd when one wants to have a big adventure Skydiving, one does not just rent an aircraft and figure that the aircraft will have a parachute, and that they can jump into it and just Skydive with no training. But when it come to Wilderness Survival somehow we can watch a movie and just go for it!

He will either:
1) Succeed.
2) Come home hungry.
3) Die.
He is 18, which means that he is old enough to make an informed decision. Even if it's a poor one.
Not sure that I would describe this situation as "sad."
"Sad" is when something is not of someone's choosing. He has, as it were, chosen. Just pray that he does not come to regret it.

You make a worthwhile point. The article points out that he left behind a book on "outdoor survival tactics" which presumably he had read. Obviously there is cause for concern.

has not ended badly yet. will probably end with a tired, hungry, bedraggled 18-yr old.

Pete2

However it ends, it will only be after wasting taxpayer money to find his sorry butt.

And that my friends, is the sad part, based on the definition provided...

or maybe not. After all, we have chosen to let this sort of thing happen and foot the bill. I guess that's on us, or at least our leaders.

No worries Benjamin. Looks like he didn't cost the taxpayers much:

Missing Arizona man found dead in southern Oregon woods

"Johnathan Croom, 18, of Apache Junction, Ariz., was discovered in a wooded area around 6:30 p.m. about 1,000 feet from where his green 2000 Honda CRV was abandoned off Yokum Road in Riddle, the Douglas County Sheriff's Office said. His death is being investigated as a suicide."

Hard to stop a person determined to end their life. They are sure to find a way to get it done one way or another.

Not sure this qualifies for a Darwin award, as it appears the young man's intent was to end his life. It would seem reasonable to conclude that since the body was found only 1,000 feet or so from the vehicle, he probably died of self inflicted injury, and not exposure.

Other articles indicate this was a "lost love" motive. Apparently one likely influence was the story "Into the Wild" about another young man who died in the wilderness, though for completely different reasons.

One wonders, had the kid found a way to deal with the heartache, what might he have accomplished in his life? Now his poor parents will inherit his heartache.

Quite a difficult challenge to find a positive aspect to these situations.

But back to the point, is the money that was spent to search for and eventually find him a waste, or a social imperative? It is of some value to know if this community considers the use of funds in public trust to rescue folks from their recklessness a reasonable and fair imposition. Was that what the funds were collected for? Is that what the people that earned that money to pay those bills worked for?

Not I.

Certainly a valid question. However, it is well worth it to put this in perspective. Wilderness SAR in this country costs the public far less than most people imagine. A few big searches get big media coverage, and can cost a lot, but overall the drain on public funds is surprisingly small. Much smaller than most people think. By and large the public gets a hell of a bargain. There are a couple of reasons for this.

The vast majority of the manpower in wilderness SAR is volunteers. We buy our own gear, give up our evenings and weekends to train, and don't get a dime in payment. In Alaska, the State Troopers have legal responsibility for land SAR. However, in my experience the Troopers nearly always delegate the actual work of SAR to volunteer teams. I have been involved in a number of major searches where there were 60+ volunteers working, with never more than one Trooper on scene (often no Troopers directly involved).

In Alaska we are also lucky to have the 176 Wing of the Air National Guard available. These include the Pavehawks, C-130s, and PJs. Their support of civilian SAR is a training function for them. They need to train for their real mission which is combat search and rescue. They do civilian SAR because it is by far the best training they can get, outside of actual combat. Challenging flying in severe weather, difficult terrain, real hurt people for the PJs to practice medicine on.... about the only thing this "training" lacks is bad guys shooting real bullets. It doesn't cost the taxpayer any more than if they just did pretend training on make believe exercises.

Climbers on Denali sometimes get involved in high profile rescues. However, all climbing parties on Denali have to pay a fee which helps support the NPS rescue operations on Denali. The Park Service also uses a lot of volunteer (ie unpaid) climbers and medical personel to assist in their high altitude rescue program.

About the only significant direct expenditure of public money is for the Trooper's helicopter. Right now, here in a state more than twice the size of Texas, we have exactly ONE state owned helicopter which is primarily used for SAR. ONE...for the entire state.

One more point. You mentioned "...the use of funds in public trust to rescue folks from their recklessness...." As noted above there are a few high profile SAR cases for people who did stupid things, the vast majority of the SARs are for ordinary people who get into trouble. Kids who got lost in the woods on the east side of Anchorage, overweight and out of shape hunters, berry pickers, fishermen, hikers who tangled with bears, all sorts of regular folks who got into trouble in the out of doors.

We will even come look for you if you should have a problem on your planned big game hunt.

1) I am truly sorry to hear of this young man's passing. One can only hope that enough will be learned to help other's.
2) UNDER ABSOLUTELY NO CIRCUMSTANCES AM I PREPARED TO USE SOMEONES SO CALLED "WORTH" TO DECIDE IF THEY ARE TO BE RESCUED. It is not for you or me to decide who lives or who dies. It is not for us to pass judgement in that fashion. Because someday you might be the person being judged. Do you really want someone going "Naw, he's a right T.... Let him drown"?

I will grant you that there could be a case for procecuting someone afterwards for willfully or negligently endangering their, or their rescuers lives. But that's an issue that requires very careful throught.

Just for the sake of argument - You are in charge of the local SAR team. The decision to be made is yours and yours alone.

Two people are lost, in the same general area, but in opposite directions. There is only enough personnel/resources/time to mount one SAR. Incoming weather will degrade conditions in a short time.

Victim one is a depressed teen who has expressed a desire to die. He has driven to a remote area and left his car.

Victim two is an older gentleman who suffers from the early effects of a disease leaving him confused at times.

Who gets rescued?

(sucks to be King sometimes, huh??)

AKSAR summarizes the SAR situation extremely well, and my experience agrees with his. My first SAR was in 1958, an incredibly garbled and inept operation, for three Boy Scouts who were indeed reckless (in hindsight). The public outcry spurred development of a much better system, mostly volunteer and military on training assignment under the direction of the county Sheriff. The USAF chopper pilots we worked with relished SAR missions. Their day job milk runs to the missile silos surrounding Tucson weren't very challenging, and as Vietnam veterans, they relished challenges.

The general rule is to rescue first, and ask questions later. I vividly recall an operation which stands out for two reasons. First it was genuinely dangerous and I could have died or been seriously injured. Secondly, I noticed that seconds after emerging from the crumbling mine shaft, our two victims were proned out on the hood of a squad car and in the process of receiving metal bracelets. Just before driving their vehicle into the mine shaft, they had been burglarizing the mine installation. Pima County jail never had more grateful inmates....

One other point - at least in NPS areas, people who are reckless can, and are, charged with the cost of their rescue. The most famous case comes from the Grand Canyon where a party activated their PLB three times in twenty-four hours (the last time because the water from the spring tasted "slightly salty."

One of these days, someone will write a history of SAR in the USA. I'll bet it will find that it has been a fruitful blend of citizen initiative and talent, with good professional oversight, and prudent use of tax revenues.

I would be the first to commend the volunteer efforts of so many brave souls. There exist myriad volunteer opportunities wherein so many good folk like yourself contribute so much of their time and effort without one notion of recompense. I too, have happily and willingly volunteered a good deal of time toward helping my fellow man.

But that is beside the point. The point is that any money spent by the government towards rescuing others from actions they voluntarily took for their own personal benefit is a misappropriation. This includes money spent for use of military services for other than their designated purpose, even if it can be rationalized as "qualitative practice". This is not to say that the experience isn't practical and of some redemptive value, but that the cost for such activity is a misappropriation.

While the robust use of volunteer effort may greatly minimize the direct expenditure of funds, there remains the issue of indirect expenditures for all the administrative costs associated with government oversight for any such activity. While we can certainly claim that direct costs are effectively minimized, it would be a hard sell to imply that all costs are minimized. The government, whether local, state or federal, does not know the use of the term frugal or efficient. I have worked with them for the better part of 30 years, tracking their inefficiencies and their bad spending practices, and we are not in debt by accident.

To be more precise, the government does not ask us for funding, they take what they want, and spend it rather whimsically. This notion of taking from the public trust any amount to pay for the behavior of a few people is frivolous, and in my opinion, wholly unnecessary. Even ordinary people getting into trouble is still reckless, because they have no means of mitigating whatever risks they take should the risks be realized, however mundane they may be. All the examples you cite are risky behavior.

It would be far more reasonable if, instead of foisting off these risks on the general public, it were a legal requirement that those with an adventurous spirit should be compelled to post bond, or otherwise indemnify the public against the costs of their eventual rescue, such as it may be. As my daughter who used to work for an insurance agent here in town told me, for the right price, you can insure against anything. The market would set the price, based on simple economics. Those who are willing and able to work to pay for their fun can take the necessary steps to mitigate the risks implied, and go about their merry business. Should fate fall on them unfavorably, the costs of their rescue are born by the underwriters, who collect the premiums that pay the bills. Should a person elect not to take the risk, then they don't pay for the insurance, and systemic equity is well preserved. Those who would abuse the process will lose the privilege, possibly by incarceration or civil penalty, or both.

That seems to best fit the model we have made for how our society ought to be working. Instead of relying more and more on the government to take care of us, thus spreading the costs to the undeserved, it would seem a better proposition to make every man fiscally responsible for his own actions.

In so doing, the value of all that volunteer effort, and that military training, and the good will toward our fellow man can be better preserved, both from a humanitarian as well as a financial perspective. Being one most willing to pay my way, I would laud all that most beneficent effort for my welfare should the need arise, and I would feel guilt free for having first met my duty as a citizen and member of this community, that I didn't cost my neighbor one nickel to come save my sorry hide.

Determining someone's worth is irrelevant to the point. Such a thing is a capricious undertaking in any case, and hardly the basis for deciding who should foot the bill, not whether such cost is warranted in one case and not another. You infer something besides the point.

The point is, who should be paying the bill? Under the current scheme of things, those with no fiduciary or other intrinsic interest in the outcome of the event are nonetheless paying for whatever consequence may materialize. That is simply unacceptable, at any scale. I do not expect you or anyone else to pay my medical costs because I elected to play Rugby 30 years ago, while I was a smoker, and subsequently have incurred chronic injury requiring ongoing medical treatment. It was my choice to do these things. You and everyone else had no say in that decision, so you should not be bearing the burden of paying for them now. That is on me, as it should be. In fact, I still take risks, and I am both willing and able to pay the costs associated with those risks.

To bring this argument full circle, my point is that, as a society, one of the most fundamental aspects of our existence is the notion that each man is responsible for himself at the least. Our survival as a group depends to a large extent on the ability of each individual member making adequate provision for himself and those he is responsible for. Failing this, our society will fall. This is the fundamental principle of our success, and our willingness to forsake that responsibility is what is eroding our way of life.

Folks, if we are to survive, we must first take up our own yokes and expect others to do the same. For the few who have an abundance, regardless what form it may be, they can choose to share that with others who may come up short, but it must be voluntary, not a compulsion. Our country was built on that principle, and prospered with it, and is withering now without it. We must be willing to work hard, to give freely, and to care for one another. This cannot and will not happen if it is by force or threat that we are made to do so. It is a fundamental of human nature to give till it hurts, but to fight vehemently against confiscation.

When you take from me without it first being offered, you diminish us both, as well the value of that which was taken.

This concept has nothing to do with judgment. I have yet to learn of any community that failed due to lack of taxation. But there have been plenty that have because of it.

Folks, we're going off on a tangent to political philosophy. It's a form of political discussion, and there are other forums better suited for that.

Well, since we're on political philosophy anyway...

I think it's a fundamental role of human civilization to do things like SAR. The strength of civilization, and the reason that the human species has been so successful, is because we're social animals. Caring for our 'stragglers' is necessary and essence of being human. To me this transcends any profit-and-loss statement or notions of libertarian politics.

Rescue first, ask questions later.

A college professor I studied under years ago spoke of a time when he worked as a cop in a large city in South Africa. One night on patrol he heard a baby crying. He was in a warehouse district with no residences nearby. He began searching for the baby and finally found it in a dumpster. He told us (members of the class) he could not have turned away. He felt compelled to search till he found the infant. He gave this as an example of instinctive behaviour which is directed at preserving the species. Searching for a lost member of our "tribe" is as basic as searching for food or water.

Benjamin-

From your writing I assume you must be a lawyer. Or maybe a wannabe lawyer.

But no worries man. We even rescue lawyers!

(Although I sometimes question whether we should be rescuing lawyers? )

Government seems to do what Ben wishes s to limit expenditure on SAR activities. The budget defines the number of helicopters, personnel, fuel, and supplies available for sar work. Volunteers augment this expenditure, but not infinitely. Any sar effort will be constrained to using up the existing budgeted items, and will stop when those are exhausted. Some states have an abundance of resources, others a much more modest supply, predicated on the will of appointed and elected officials to use the resources under their control. If you get lost in Alaska, you may get a military helicopter ride; if in Wyoming, it might be Harrison Ford flying a personal chopper (it happened, twice). Get lost in the Adirondacks, and you get a couple of forest rangers, and maybe an ATV. I think it means that the political system is doing exactly what Ben wants done: applying a calculus of the value of rescuing someone in determining how to allocate funds. It just happens in an arcane, covert, and unknowable fashion, which we call democracy.

Same thing happens in ER's. We hold out the offer to care for all comers, but limit access by limiting the number and size of ER's, so that queuing, delays in care and lack of capacity make the difference in who lives and dies, rather than a committee. It all seems to be working just fine...

Yeah Nursemike, that's about how it works.

Also I should mention that in Alaska you might get a military helicopter ride. Then again maybe not. In recent years, at any given time, about half of those folks and their aircraft are deployed in Afganistan. Those that are in Alaska between deployments have other military duties. They support civilian SAR on an "as available" basis. And they have their own rules, for example the military will not do civilian body recoveries. State Troopers and volunteer SAR will do recoveries if it can be accomplished with minimal risk.

We do the best we can with what we have available.

Answer: both. SARs are typically organized at the county level. If your county SAR is overwhelmed, they involve the SAR from neighboring jurisdictions. They can search across borders easily enough. Mutual assistance etc. SARs work together all the time.

I don't think you can posit enough SAR scenarios that would force SAR to make a value judgment about the lost people being reckless, etc.

Mutual support to another county is a common for my team. Generally support is supplied with in the region (like a 4 county area.)

But there are exceptions such as the lost climber on Mt. Hood late last spring where my team Mountain Rescue Unit lent a hand.

Blake

www.outdoorquest.blogspot.com

"From your writing I assume you must be a lawyer"
What do you call one lawyer drowned in the sea?
a good start.
Why won't a shark bite a lawyer?
Professional courtesy
How many lawyers does it take to roof a house?
depends on how thin you slice them.

There is an implicit assumption in the discussion so far that we are talking about victims who got into trouble while recreating. What about folks who need rescuing while working or pursuing some non-recreational end? This isn't hypothetical.

About thirty years ago, a ranger went out on a Sunday afternoon to "check the nature trail" a perfectly good way to conclude a slow winter Sunday afternoon. He hasn't been seen since. How and why he disappeared still isn't resolved, although there are two theories. He may have run into some bad guys consummating a drug deal and been offed by them. He may have skipped to Mexico. He was a controversial employee who had just been reinstated after winning a court battle.

The primary search went on for two weeks, followed by training in the use of Drager breathing devices and the search of several extensive mine workings in the area, and a lot of following up of leads in the months and years thereafter. Eventually his estate was settled and his widow received her proper benefits. BTW, that is one of the practical benefits of a SAR, even if it is nothing more than a body - death is a settled issue and the estate can be probated with no length delays, to say whatever psychological benefits may come to family and friends.

" The point is that any money spent by the government towards rescuing others from actions they voluntarily took for their own personal benefit is a misappropriation."

I am not so sure about that. In every jurisdiction in which I have lived for the last several years, LE agencies, most prominently the county sheriff in the case of rural settings, are explicitly charged with resolving emergency situations and saving lives. Other organizations do the same. Consider the urban firefighter who will enter the burning building to rescue the victim, who may well have started the fire through some careless or negligent act.

My career employer, the National Park Service, puts saving lives as its first priority, usually expressed this way - other than saving lives, suppressing fires is our most important job.

I am comfortable living in, and supporting, through taxes and other means, a society that functions in this manner.

Nope not a lawyer, just a country boy who works for a living.

No one seems to be getting the point I am trying to make here. It must be me, my expression must be inadequate.

I am not saying we shouldn't rescue people. In fact, I am glad we have the facility and means to do so. I think programs like SAR are quite valuable, and the folks who work so hard to help others are friggin' saints in my book.

My concern is that everyone for whom the service has saved their lives made a choice at some point to undertake an activity involving risk. That risk gets transferred to all of us due to tax collection and subsequent funding of various programs and services used. Some folks may be compelled to pay a modicum of the costs associated with their rescue, but the vast majority don't and likely couldn't even if they were told to.

Maybe I am just an idealist, but I grow weary of watching stupid people do stupid things that I have to pay for the fix. It interferes with my survival plans, among other things. Lord knows I do enough stupid things that I have to pay for myself, I don't need to be paying for more than my share.

We need a better mechanism for paying these costs than just pulling money from the general fund. That wasn't what it was intended for, and it gets used to justify a lot of abuse. We use indemnification processes for lots of other things we do. Maybe there's a way to make it work for "rescue insurance" too.

Not political, practical. Pay to play. That's how life should go. We spend money on gear, guides, transport, to go do our thing. If we expect a safety net, then we should be willing to pay for that too, not make everyone else pay for it.

Very few people in this world get to do anything they want without consequence. Poor folk have choices to make, the same as rich folk. If a person chooses to go leave the security of their civilization, whether it is to fish, hunt, work, or just take in the scenery, indemnification should be as much a part of their provisions as a firemaking kit. It should require the same consideration when planning the event.

For those less fortunate, life is an exercise in survival, and I don't recall ever hearing of homeless folks needing rescue out in the boonies. But their plight is a whole different issue.

Benjammin said "No one seems to be getting the point I am trying to make here. It must be me, my expression must be inadequate."

I think most of us understand what you said. We just disagree on the function of society and government. A government is designed to provide some level of common support. You apparently do not include SAR in that. I do. I think this is a reasonable expenditure for the society to make. Since you do not, we will just have to agree to disagree.

Respectfully,

Jerry

+1 - very well put and nicely stated. I am glad we have this forum wherein we can discuss issues like this, and "agree to disagree" in a civil manner.

I think the point was more about holding people accountable for their poor judgment instead of placing the cost on everyone else. I find much merit in that point of view. If people do not think they will have to pay the price or bear the burden for their decisions, they will not learn to make better ones.

On the flip side, implementing any kind of policy or law which could enforce that would be difficult at best. Where is the line drawn between bad judgement and accidents, especially when someone was not aware of all aspects of the situation facing them, and who will make that judgement. There are many well intentioned policies and laws on the books that are useless because they can't be implemented properly.

So we continue to bail people out of their own mistakes, and we also rescue people who are in dire need and not in a bad situation of their own making. In the end, I think we come out on top.

"We need a better mechanism for paying these costs than just pulling money from the general fund."

The SAR group I participated in very often received donations from the rescued. In fact donations more than covered the counties SAR costs and enabled extra money to be spent in education at the 4th grade and adult levels. The people rescued were nearly always otherwise very responsible people in their regular lives, they were just out of their element. Several of the rescued went on to learn and volunteer in the SAR group.

Unless someone is acting criminally, I think we as a people should just cover the cost of rescue.

The NPS will present a bill for SAR costs in very egregious situations, under the heading of "creating a disturbance"(or very similar wording. This is done on a case by case basis, and only rarely.

One thing about the SAR victims I have known is that their common denominator is experience, or, rather, lack thereof. Once a person has learned a bit,the chances of their getting into trouble decline rather significantly. My own early history illustrates the point beautifully. On my very first hike in mountainous terrain, I narrowly avoided serious injury or death, only by dump luck not suffering about a fifty foot fall. I emerged uninjured and somewhat wiser. I have often thought about that incident when I have been on scenes where victims were not as fortunate.

Well, maybe in there somewhere is some common ground for us all. I would still prefer people be more accountable for themselves, especially when they know what they are doing has risk involved. But you can't consider all possible outcomes of a given course. It would be nice, at least, to see someone offer a mechanism for indemnification suitable for the adventurous. I haven't seen anything like that yet.

If I were to go much further we'd be squarely into the realm of politics. So I'll simply say that I'm fine with pooling the collective costs and risks of things like SAR. To me it's little different than using taxes to build highways, fix bridges and field a military. IMOHO it's the reason civilization exists.

You might prefer something like the practice in Europe, where mountaineers purchase rescue insurance which defrays the cost of choppers and planes, etc. that get involved. I encountered one such gentleman on Denali some years ago. He came to us complaining of frostbitten feet, along with general malaise , etc. It was pretty clear that he wasn't having fun any more and wanted the NPS to whisk him off the hill right away (This was at the 14,500 foot advance base camp)which I gather would have been the practice back home. We directed him to insure that his feet didn't thaw until he reached the hospital, and start his journey there by skiing down to the airstrip (7000 feet). This was standard practice twenty-five years ago -I am not clear on current policies, but it worked fine back then.

Rescues and recoveries on Denali do get a bit pricey, but here is another twist on the situation. The popularity of Denali, one of the Seven Summits, brings a lot of high spending alpinists to Alaska, who pump a significant amount of cash into the local economy, enabling those pesky taxes

Yes, that's it! Just a mechanism to reimburse the costs. So that when the services we taxpayers provide does get used, it gets paid for. Make it like driving a car, where most states require you to have insurance because of the inherent risks and costs involved.

Is that really asking too much?

The point is that this gentleman with the frost-bitten feet was as wimpy as they come, and also hadn't paid attention during his mandatory briefing before starting up The Hill. His use of "rescue insurance" significantly degraded his self reliance. He still scarfed up tax dollars. We spent at least an hour dealing with him.....

At first glance the European model of buying rescue insurance seems atttractive. However I'm not convinced it would be all that workable in the US. (Note that I only have very limited experience in Europe, so any of our members from that part of the world feel free to correct me if I've got any of the following wrong.)

As I understand it the European system is focused on mountaineers, and climbing is highly concentrated in the Alps. Mountain rescue is handled by a small number of national rescue services. These folks operate out of a small number of centrally located bases, and are paid, full time professionals. They have highly trained rescuers, helicopters, physicians, dogs, etc available 24/7. Climbers are billed for rescues, so climbers buy insurance ahead of time from their national alpine clubs. Outside of the Alps Western Europe doesn't have, for the most part, that many large wilderness areas where people recreate. All this paid and insured rescue activity happens in the Alps.

In North America, on the other hand, climbing areas are much more dispersed. There are climbing areas in many states, and in almost every region of the country. Because our areas are so dispersed, having a full time paid rescue staff would be very inefficient and costly. Unlike Europe we also have large areas of wild and semi-wild land, particularly in the western states. That wild land is administered by a wide range of entities (national parks, national forests, county, state, tribal, private etc). We have large numbers of people doing all sorts of activities in the out of doors on those lands. Much of it is recreation, but a lot of people are out there for work. Most of these people are doing things that are not usually all that risky. Yet from time to time these folks become subjects for SAR. Sometimes from doing dumb things, but often from shear bad luck.

For example, take a look at the Oregon Department of Emergency Management publication on Search and Rescue: Accumulated Totals for 1997 to 2013. The maps show that these searches and rescue happen all over the state. When looking at the activities of the people rescued (page 37), you will also see that all sorts of people doing pretty ordinary things get rescued. Note that climbers are way down the list. In fact the second highest number are "Motor Vehicles". You might recall that some years back there was a huge search in Oregon for the Kim family, who simply got lost while driving from Portland to the coast. Now the Kim's certainly did some dumb things, but I doubt they thought they were doing anything risky, and they probably would not have bought rescue insurance. (I myself grew up in the Northwest, and I have gotten really lost on some of those logging roads. I was just lucky enough to find my way back before I got stuck.)

In Alaska, just about everyone does something outdoors. Fishing, hunting, berry picking, hiking, XC skiing, snow machining, running on trails, walking their dogs, kids playing in the woods on the edge of town. Just about all of these folks can and sometimes do become subjects for SAR missions. Virtually everyone in Alaska is a potential SAR mission at sometime or another. Maybe even you!

Hence to make a European climber insurance type system work for us, EVERYONE would need to pay for insurance. And that would mean we would need yet another bureacracy to administer that system. Somebody would need to collect the money, mail out the cards, check to see if you paid etc etc etc. I don't think we need more bureaucrats. Since to make it work fairly, nearly everyone (not just climbers) would need to buy into it, why would that be any different than just doing it the way we do it now? Nearly everyone pays taxes in some form or another. Why is making a separate rescue insurance fee more fair? Just to create a new bureacracy? Do we really need the "Alaska State Office of Search and Rescue Insurance Administration" in a big new building in downtown Anchorage? And a similar office and bureacracy in each of the other 49 states?

I think not.

Or just bill those who need it, have a credit/bank card terminal in hand when you find them, I'm sure they cough up the dough real quick.

Without getting too far afield, I am in general in favor of less taxation. With that said, the system that we have, where SAR is available for all and those who really deserve it get billed, seems to work reasonably well by my lights. If we have to err, I would prefer to err on the side of compassion.

Excellent point about the inevitable administrative costs....

Plenty of people get into trouble without consciously assuming any kind of risk. Some years ago a couple was camped in the back country of Navajo National Monument at Keet Seel ruin in a designated and approved, etc.etc., NPS campsite.

During the day, there was spontaneous rock fall from the adjacent high cliff, killing one woman in the party, despite the presence of an experienced nurse (whom I knew personally) in the adjacent campsite. What was she doing wrong? Sometime stuff happens.

Sometimes we even rescued animals - stranded horses or on one occasion, a dog in a mine shaft. Our group chalked it up to training. There is a definite threshold in volunteer SAR. You need enough events to keep the membership active, but not overloaded and burned out. The pet owners were really grateful. For years the largest donation we ever received was from the grateful owners of the dog down the mine shaft

Okay, okay. Let's keep the system the way it is now. I thought maybe there was a way to make paying these bills a little more relevant. But if everyone is still happy to continue paying the consequences for other people's choices, good or bad, then I guess I'll just make sure at least I cover my own interests, and make more use of those paid for government resources for my own benefit, somehow.

Seems that's the way this country is heading anyways. Why fight it?

Thanks to AKSAR and Hikermor for these thoughtful posts on SAR! The current system seems like a working system. As the saying goes, if it ain't broke... I'm willing to pay taxes for a fool to be rescued from time to time if that also means saving many good people.

I suppose this could easily veer to much toward the political, and we don't want to go there, but I have regarded today's SAR volunteers as philosophically related to the Minutemen of our revolutionary era. One minute we are plowing fields and splitting shingles for the roofs of our log cabins and then the phone rings, and its off to another SAR opps!

I guess the term "Minuteman" is outdated and sexist - probably should be "Minutepersons" - my apologies

Let me close then by repeating my earlier clarification.

I have great respect for all those fine folks who go out of their way to help others in need. I believe charity, especially in this form, is noble, and pleases God, or Karma, or whatever one chooses to believe in. While not qualified in rescue operations, I have seen fit to do my part as a volunteer, and I believe that time was well spent.

My many thanks to all those who give of their time and money freely. My qualms with how we run our social business via our government have nothing to do with my feelings in this regard. I will always support those who volunteer to help others. I hope throughout this discussion no one has got the wrong idea.

They should probably do the same thing they did for climbers on Denali. Make everyone who goes out there pay a "rescue insurance". The main problem is how do you enforce this with random hikers. Maybe require them to buy some sort of Day Pass.

pete2

Most parks do in deed have some sort of entry fee, as well as campground fees, etc. Those fees assist in keeping the trained and knowledgeable (hopefully!) staff in place that will render emergency assistance, as well as other functions.

https://www.nwmedstar.org/Sub.aspx?id=470

We carry this insurance for helicopter evac as we lived in a rural area and a quick trip to the trauma doc usually ran $25000.

The rescued will have to pay this bill otherwise, it is not covered by taxes.