Originally Posted By: haertig
However, I feel that the families/friends/survivors who requested the rescue should be billed for the costs. UNLESS this is a normally taxpayer funded operation (e.g., like a town fire department - your taxes pay for them, not individual bills for those who actually have fires), or the climbers had some kind of "insurance" (e.g., here in Colorado when you buy a fishing license, a certain protion of that fee - which is mandatory - goes for "rescue insurance"). But barring these caviots, you put the burden of survival on yourself when you undertake any activity. If you ask for help with no previous arrangements to cover the cost of that help, you should be responsible for paying for it.


I strenuously disagree.

The rescue teams on Mt. Hood are predominately volunteers. The helicopter and plane flights are factored as training that the National Guard, et.al. need anyway to maintain readiness.

We all pay taxes for services we'll never use that are intended for people in situations we pray that we and our friends and family will never find ourselves in.

These climbers engaged in a high-risk activity. One at which they are very experienced and were apparently reasonably well equipped (we're all being presumptuous here) .

I don't think their climb up Mt. Hood was higher risk than James Kim's ill-fated drive into the coastal mountains a few years ago. Or the trips all kinds of people take in dangerous conditions, often driving poorly-equipped or maintained vehicles.

I have one bad knee and two bad ankles, yet I hike in areas where if one of those joints gave way, I would probably require assistance beyond my hiking buddies (who neglect to carry a gurney or crutches). I've hiked on Mt. Hood and have a particularly vivid memory of a treacherous traverse of a river that was raging because of glacial melt we could have, and should have, avoided. Had to carry my dog across, which was especially exciting (the power of rushing water indelibly etched in my mind). Perhaps it's reckless for me to hike in remote areas, given my knee and ankle problems.

I've paid a small fortune in taxes for schools that the children I've never had won't ever attend.

I don't smoke so the cigarettes I don't consume won't ever cause a fire that requires the fire department to respond. And I'm not the fool on the next block who dumped hot briquettes next to a propane tank resulting in a five-alarm fire that burned several homes.

In the universe of taxpayer-funded services, search-and-rescue is a few molecules in a drop in the multi-trillion dollar bucket.

If everyone was content sitting in front of their televisions and computers all day, then society would spend less on search-and-rescue.

But then there'd be more heart disease straining our health care system.

I get the sentiment, but the reasoning doesn't hold up under examination. There's so much else going on far more worthy of getting excited about and demanding restitution for.

So my vote is for people not to have to worry about going bankrupt if they or a family member needs help because they get lost in the woods or stranded on a mountain or their car goes off the road because they cheaped out on their tires or neglected to put chains on.

And if a kitten (that the owner should have kept inside the house) gets stuck at the top of a tree or stuck in a drainage pipe, I'll applaud the fire department for the rescue.

The taxpayer-funded rescue.

The humanity of saving a life is something I'm okay with my taxes paying for. Those are the news stories that make me smile.