Expending large resources to rescue people from optional recreation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My BF does search & rescue (including in a very dangerous mountain range where many people have died), he'd disagree.

First, you'd have to set criteria for who gets rescued and who doesn't, and that's extremely difficult to do.

Let's say a parent takes their child hiking in the dangerous mountains. Most people would agree the child should not be left to die because of the parent.

You would have to set an absurd amount of criteria for deciding who gets rescued and who doesn't. What's the cut-off temperature for hiking the Grand Canyon? The altitude for Mount Everest? How do you verify that person exceeded it? What of the weather forecast called for a mild, sunny day, but the temperature randomly spikes or a storm blows in?

At that point, you'd have SO much criteria and it would be so intensive to go through it, that would take more time and resources than just rescuing the person.

Second, when you base rescue services on vibes-based moral judgement, everyone becomes fair game. At that point, everyone can be denied help because you "should have known better". You were driving 5 miles over the speed limit and crashed? Sorry, no help for you, you should have known better. You eat dessert once a week? Sorry you got heart disease, but no help for you, you should have eaten a 100% clean diet.

Third, most SAR teams are volunteers. They *want* to help. It's fun for them. My BF is paid, but he loves it. And even tho my BF is paid, SAR is a small part of his job, and he is able to use his skills for other productive jobs, like helping law enforcement (which is actually most of what he does, the search & rescue operations are few and far between, even with us living in a dangerous area with mountains and intense heat). So he would be paid whether or not he does SAR.

Fourth, denying help doesn't really deter people. People who do dumb things already underestimate the danger and overestimate their skills. Denying rescue just leads to higher fatality rates, it's not a deterrence.

Fifth, once you have high fatality rates, you now have to go recover the bodies anyway. Money will have to go to that. Yes, they leave bodies on Mount Everest. But if someone dies on a hiking trail, you can't leave the body there. So the money now goes towards recovering bodies. Better for it to be spent rescuing people while alive.

Sixth, not rescuing people usually leads to a bigger mess. Families and friends try to go help. Other hikers try to go help. Now you have a bigger, messier, more dangerous rescue situation, and more bodies to recover, which costs more money.

Better options are to fine people, require them to pay for at least part of their rescue, permit bans, and holding people like influencers accountable when people copy them.

This is an amazing and comprehensive post - thank you for writing it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP, where could the line be drawn? Any activity by choice? Riding a bike, ice skating, basketball. The likelihood of injury is higher is some mild activities than extreme ones. Ability to help should not be withheld because one ornery busybody disagrees with saving others.

Skiing and snowmobiling "back country" trails seems like a pretty clear line. And yes, the Grand Canyon absolutely COULD put up signs in the summer saying hiking is closed for the day and anyone hiking anyway will NOT be rescued.

It doesn't have to be a slippery slope or moral judgement. State in advance what is NOT happening and why.

Ok, but what about the day that is below the temperature threshold so the park is open but Bob is overweight and doesn't bring any water so Bob faints on the trail? You're acting like you can draw these lines in the sand and you can't.

Same type would love a caveat against the overweight. There is never a lack of people willing to discriminate and when given a choice of helping or not, will choose not helping.

[Anonymous]

We hike in Switzerland frequently. It is well known-and posted everywhere - that if you require rescue for your oen stupidity (being unprepared, etc), you will be billed the cost of rescue, whereas if you have a true emergency - fell while hiking and broke your leg, you will not be billed. The Swiss rescue authority designates rescues as stupid or not and you basically have to abide by their decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My BF does search & rescue (including in a very dangerous mountain range where many people have died), he'd disagree.

First, you'd have to set criteria for who gets rescued and who doesn't, and that's extremely difficult to do.

Let's say a parent takes their child hiking in the dangerous mountains. Most people would agree the child should not be left to die because of the parent.

You would have to set an absurd amount of criteria for deciding who gets rescued and who doesn't. What's the cut-off temperature for hiking the Grand Canyon? The altitude for Mount Everest? How do you verify that person exceeded it? What of the weather forecast called for a mild, sunny day, but the temperature randomly spikes or a storm blows in?

At that point, you'd have SO much criteria and it would be so intensive to go through it, that would take more time and resources than just rescuing the person.

Second, when you base rescue services on vibes-based moral judgement, everyone becomes fair game. At that point, everyone can be denied help because you "should have known better". You were driving 5 miles over the speed limit and crashed? Sorry, no help for you, you should have known better. You eat dessert once a week? Sorry you got heart disease, but no help for you, you should have eaten a 100% clean diet.

Third, most SAR teams are volunteers. They *want* to help. It's fun for them. My BF is paid, but he loves it. And even tho my BF is paid, SAR is a small part of his job, and he is able to use his skills for other productive jobs, like helping law enforcement (which is actually most of what he does, the search & rescue operations are few and far between, even with us living in a dangerous area with mountains and intense heat). So he would be paid whether or not he does SAR.

Fourth, denying help doesn't really deter people. People who do dumb things already underestimate the danger and overestimate their skills. Denying rescue just leads to higher fatality rates, it's not a deterrence.

Fifth, once you have high fatality rates, you now have to go recover the bodies anyway. Money will have to go to that. Yes, they leave bodies on Mount Everest. But if someone dies on a hiking trail, you can't leave the body there. So the money now goes towards recovering bodies. Better for it to be spent rescuing people while alive.

Sixth, not rescuing people usually leads to a bigger mess. Families and friends try to go help. Other hikers try to go help. Now you have a bigger, messier, more dangerous rescue situation, and more bodies to recover, which costs more money.

Better options are to fine people, require them to pay for at least part of their rescue, permit bans, and holding people like influencers accountable when people copy them.

This is an amazing and comprehensive post - thank you for writing it!

+1000

End thread

[Anonymous]

You don't understand the mindset of a rescuer, OP. My husband was one of those, a long time ago, during and after med school. He was responsible for medical repatriation, rode in helicopters to extract victims from ravines, etc... Such people have a need for external "hero" validation. They WANT to rescue you. They want to save lives. Most of the time, there's no judgment on what you did that caused you to end up like this.

You are not imposing on anyone by going out and needing to be rescued. The rescue teams are there to help. Obviously, it's not cool for anyone to not do their due diligence, and need to be rescued because they were not prepared enough or did something foolish. But a lot of people who need rescue are victims of adverse circumstances, not their own foolishness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My BF does search & rescue (including in a very dangerous mountain range where many people have died), he'd disagree.

First, you'd have to set criteria for who gets rescued and who doesn't, and that's extremely difficult to do.

Let's say a parent takes their child hiking in the dangerous mountains. Most people would agree the child should not be left to die because of the parent.

You would have to set an absurd amount of criteria for deciding who gets rescued and who doesn't. What's the cut-off temperature for hiking the Grand Canyon? The altitude for Mount Everest? How do you verify that person exceeded it? What of the weather forecast called for a mild, sunny day, but the temperature randomly spikes or a storm blows in?

At that point, you'd have SO much criteria and it would be so intensive to go through it, that would take more time and resources than just rescuing the person.

Second, when you base rescue services on vibes-based moral judgement, everyone becomes fair game. At that point, everyone can be denied help because you "should have known better". You were driving 5 miles over the speed limit and crashed? Sorry, no help for you, you should have known better. You eat dessert once a week? Sorry you got heart disease, but no help for you, you should have eaten a 100% clean diet.

Third, most SAR teams are volunteers. They *want* to help. It's fun for them. My BF is paid, but he loves it. And even tho my BF is paid, SAR is a small part of his job, and he is able to use his skills for other productive jobs, like helping law enforcement (which is actually most of what he does, the search & rescue operations are few and far between, even with us living in a dangerous area with mountains and intense heat). So he would be paid whether or not he does SAR.

Fourth, denying help doesn't really deter people. People who do dumb things already underestimate the danger and overestimate their skills. Denying rescue just leads to higher fatality rates, it's not a deterrence.

Fifth, once you have high fatality rates, you now have to go recover the bodies anyway. Money will have to go to that. Yes, they leave bodies on Mount Everest. But if someone dies on a hiking trail, you can't leave the body there. So the money now goes towards recovering bodies. Better for it to be spent rescuing people while alive.

Sixth, not rescuing people usually leads to a bigger mess. Families and friends try to go help. Other hikers try to go help. Now you have a bigger, messier, more dangerous rescue situation, and more bodies to recover, which costs more money.

Better options are to fine people, require them to pay for at least part of their rescue, permit bans, and holding people like influencers accountable when people copy them.

This is an amazing and comprehensive post - thank you for writing it!

You’re so welcome! I’m super proud of my BF and what he does. Also, it is VERY sexy to watch, LOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't understand the mindset of a rescuer, OP. My husband was one of those, a long time ago, during and after med school. He was responsible for medical repatriation, rode in helicopters to extract victims from ravines, etc... Such people have a need for external "hero" validation. They WANT to rescue you. They want to save lives. Most of the time, there's no judgment on what you did that caused you to end up like this.

You are not imposing on anyone by going out and needing to be rescued. The rescue teams are there to help. Obviously, it's not cool for anyone to not do their due diligence, and need to be rescued because they were not prepared enough or did something foolish. But a lot of people who need rescue are victims of adverse circumstances, not their own foolishness.

Even if the labor is free, the resources are most certainly not.

[Anonymous]

I feel that way about animal rescues OP....I am fine with human rescues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don't understand the mindset of a rescuer, OP. My husband was one of those, a long time ago, during and after med school. He was responsible for medical repatriation, rode in helicopters to extract victims from ravines, etc... Such people have a need for external "hero" validation. They WANT to rescue you. They want to save lives. Most of the time, there's no judgment on what you did that caused you to end up like this.

You are not imposing on anyone by going out and needing to be rescued. The rescue teams are there to help. Obviously, it's not cool for anyone to not do their due diligence, and need to be rescued because they were not prepared enough or did something foolish. But a lot of people who need rescue are victims of adverse circumstances, not their own foolishness.

Even if the labor is free, the resources are most certainly not.

This is how living in a society works, PP. Some resources are expended for purposes you do not approve of. If you were to find yourself in need of rescue, I bet you'd change your mind rapidly. Normal people have the capacity to put themselves in other people's shoes and imagine a Golden Rule of conduct. Apparently, you lack this capacity. It's your loss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Drives me insane and I wish it would be banned. This current post is triggered by all the avalanche rescues, but also applies to people who hike the Grand Canyon in July, or decide to “sail around the world” or climb Everest or whatever. These are expensive, ego/hobby driven, optional recreational activities. We should not spend any time or money or risk any lives rescuing these people.

Does anyone agree with me?

These^ people I strongly dislike. The ones I kinda like are the ones who fall in the Grand Canyon while taking a selfie, get trampled while taunting a bison, or get dissected by a shark. You know, the ones who go full
Steve Irwin & only need to have their remains recovered rather than their lives rescued.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP, where could the line be drawn? Any activity by choice? Riding a bike, ice skating, basketball. The likelihood of injury is higher is some mild activities than extreme ones. Ability to help should not be withheld because one ornery busybody disagrees with saving others.

Skiing and snowmobiling "back country" trails seems like a pretty clear line. And yes, the Grand Canyon absolutely COULD put up signs in the summer saying hiking is closed for the day and anyone hiking anyway will NOT be rescued.

It doesn't have to be a slippery slope or moral judgement. State in advance what is NOT happening and why.

Who’s around to post signs daily? Everyone’s been DOGEd.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With this reasoning, we shouldn’t send in the EMTs when the driver is speeding.

And we should tell health insurance not to cover treatment when it's a smoker who gets lung cancer. Quite the slippery slope you get there when you decide who is "worthy" of help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We hike in Switzerland frequently. It is well known-and posted everywhere - that if you require rescue for your oen stupidity (being unprepared, etc), you will be billed the cost of rescue, whereas if you have a true emergency - fell while hiking and broke your leg, you will not be billed. The Swiss rescue authority designates rescues as stupid or not and you basically have to abide by their decision.

I enjoyed this post.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with PP, where could the line be drawn? Any activity by choice? Riding a bike, ice skating, basketball. The likelihood of injury is higher is some mild activities than extreme ones. Ability to help should not be withheld because one ornery busybody disagrees with saving others.

Skiing and snowmobiling "back country" trails seems like a pretty clear line. And yes, the Grand Canyon absolutely COULD put up signs in the summer saying hiking is closed for the day and anyone hiking anyway will NOT be rescued.

It doesn't have to be a slippery slope or moral judgement. State in advance what is NOT happening and why.

Ok, but what about the day that is below the temperature threshold so the park is open but Bob is overweight and doesn't bring any water so Bob faints on the trail? You're acting like you can draw these lines in the sand and you can't.

Not to mention - anyone can get in trouble at the Grand Canyon. This is partly because when you start hiking you’re going downhill. It’s much easier to know when to stop when you start walking uphill - going down is easier. But at the GC you start going downhill and then have to go up to leave which makes it harder to know your limit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With this reasoning, we shouldn’t send in the EMTs when the driver is speeding.

So motorcycle accidents are DIY?