Headline: A 911 Dispatcher Used Facebook To Find A Badly Injured Hiker In California (after 911 call is cut short)

http://www.businessinsider.com/r-injured...ll-fails-2015-1

I'm glad this gentleman got help. I wish him well. And the 911 people certainly went the distance.

But this story also bugs me in a lot of ways. (So does Facebook, so there's an obvious bias. Bear with me.)

First, why would anyone post such a level of detail in a public forum? "Hi, I'll be away all day, feel free to burglarize my house."

Second, Facebook is effectively a paywall (and you are the tasty bacon being bought and sold). If you're not on Facebook, you can't see this stuff (not easily, anyway). Heaven forbid that someone mistake this for leaving word with a responsible person (which he may have done, we don't know).

Enough of my ranting. What do you think?

Full disclosure: I am a Facebook user.

I read this story differently, Doug. Rather than thinking it's about an irresponsible parent who thinks Facebook is the perfect back-up plan, my first thoughts were: "Wow! An 8 year trying to call 911 for his dad and the cel phone/cel signal died in the middle of the call, before the 911 crew could get the details they needed to start a search, and the dispatcher used social media to fill in the missing information. That's cool!"

This is a case of a mid-trip emergency. It's possible that dad did do the right thing pre-trip, and advised a responsible person, but they may not have been overdue yet. Sounds like the other person wasn't at all in the "Huston, we have a problem!" loop when the accident happened and the cel/signal conked out? The kid did the right thing, IMO, by calling 911 first and not that other person.

Maybe, just maybe, this is a case, where using social media, as part of responsible trip planning, was a good thing? It certainly help the SAR team find the bread crumb trail. We'll never know, but I wonder how long might rescue have taken if they didn't find the tip on Facebook?

I could not access the main reference, but any thing that provides useful information to SAR can't be all bad....It was a regular practice, and still is, I am sure, to check with friends and associates of a missing subjects, to retrieve any information that might be pertinent to a search operation.

I am not a Facebook user, with no plans for becoming one.

A direct link to the Reuters piece:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/07/us-usa-hiker-california-idUSKBN0KG24420150107

I wonder if they tried climbing back up 150' to regain the signal. Regardless, don't argue with success -- a win is a win.

I had a Facebook account years ago and when FB wiped my data (as in everything) I didn't replace it, just canceled the acct. IOW, I'm not on FB either.

The 150' fall must have been relatively low angle for him to have survived. Even so, very fortunate, and good thinking by dispatch...

That requires cooperation between burglars, people who can read your Facebook feed, and people who know your address. Perhaps some people make their Facebook feed visible to the general public, advertising their address and the times they'll be away. Some people restrict their feed only to Facebook "friends," and choose the friends carefully. Some people don't use their real name, and don't reveal their real identity on Facebook.