Rescues in the wilderness areas surrounding Mount St. Helens continue to increase, and some of the people who call for aid have been criticized for their careless behavior.
A 21-year-old man had a spinal injury while kayaking over a waterfall. When she hit a rock while sliding down a snow-covered slope on Mount St. Helens, a 54-year-old lady sustained a head injury.
It took six hours to complete each of those May rescues in a remote, hilly area. Additionally, one sheriff on the West Coast is reportedly considering issuing bills to the most egregious victims.
The Sheriff’s Office in Skamania County, the remote, sparsely populated county in Washington that is home to Mount St. Helens, has proposed a new county ordinance that would cite anyone found to be careless or reckless in their actions when search and rescue is called.
Sheriff Summer Scheyer stated in a statement, “I need to come up with a creative way to discourage the current behavior we are witnessing while trying to recover the financial burden placed on our county.” Although the planning stage of this law is still ongoing, I think it would serve as an additional disincentive for people who take extremely high risks.
According to the Sheriff’s Office, Skamania County saw a sharp increase in search and rescue operations in May when compared to the same month the previous year. Several of these missions took four to nine hours to finish.
It’s not only Skamania County. Noting a sharp rise in search and rescue efforts, the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office in southern Utah said Tuesday it was seeking permits for some of the most difficult and isolated slot canyons.
In 2023, there will be 3,308 national park search and rescue operations nationwide, involving everything from a hiker who has become lost in the mountains to a child who has been separated from their parents.
It has already been suggested that careless hikers should be made to pay for their rescue.
According to the state of New Hampshire, people might have to reimburse the expenses incurred in order to save them. Purchasing Hike Safe Cards, which cost $25 per individual and $35 per family and fund the state’s search and rescue operations, is one option to prevent such fees.
In one recent rescue that received media attention, two hikers needed to be saved after they deviated from a designated track and believed they were hypothermic while hiking in the middle of January despite a prediction of rain, sleet, and snow. To reach the hikers, rescuers had to create a trail through rugged terrain for three-quarters of a mile. According to a news release from the Fish and Game Department, the two were discovered to be ill-prepared for the predicted circumstances and to have no Hike Safe Cards.
A huge search and rescue effort was initiated in Orange County, California, in 2013 for two hikers, Kyndall Jack, 18, and Nicolas Cendoya, 19. After becoming lost on an Easter Sunday trek in Trabuco Canyon, they called for assistance. Before authorities could determine their whereabouts, the cell phone they used to make the call died.
Three days later, Cendoya was discovered half a mile from their car, disoriented and without shoes, and the following day, Jack was discovered in shoulder-high vegetation. Some government officials demanded that the $160,000 rescue price be reimbursed when investigators discovered methamphetamine in the car the two had parked before the trip.
Cendoya entered a guilty plea to one felony count of drug possession, but he was entitled to participate in a drug-diversion program, which, if successful, might result in the dismissal of the charges against him. According to court documents, the matter was dropped in 2015.
However, a judge rejected the Orange County Fire Authority’s effort to recoup the $55,000 it spent on the hunt for the two, stating that the agency was not a victim of a crime and was therefore not entitled to compensation.
Legislators in California responded by amending the legislation to permit government representatives to request payment for rescues in the future, subject to specific requirements.
The statute, which was signed into law in 2015, permits a county or city to request compensation for rescue expenses if the rescue involved the use of extreme measures and was the consequence of a deliberate act committed in knowing violation of any law that led to the perpetrator’s criminal conviction.
However, if the person being rescued is unable to pay, the county cannot collect. Additionally, the county cannot get more than $12,000 unless the person who was saved had a felony conviction.
The hikers faced additional legal action to hold them financially responsible, even though Orange County was unable to recover its expenses.
According to the rescuer’s lawyers, Jack was sued by a volunteer rescuer who was hurt during the search after falling more than 100 feet. The volunteer, who accused Jack of carelessly endangering rescuers, was awarded $100,000 as part of a settlement from Jack’s mother’s homeowner’s insurance policy. Cendoya also reached a settlement with the rescuer for an undisclosed sum of money, according to the rescuer’s lawyer.
Some search and rescue groups oppose charging individuals who require rescue. According to the Mountain Rescue Association, no one should ever be forced to put off reporting a search or rescue incident to the appropriate authorities for fear of facing prosecution.
The group stated in a 2009 position statement that teams of unpaid professional rescue mountaineers volunteer their time to conduct search and rescue operations, providing the majority of services that rescue individuals in the U.S. mountains.
Charley Shimanski, the president of the Mountain Rescue Association at the time, stated in a statement that the average search and rescue operation is completed in a few hours and that the expenses are often relatively modest because the great majority of the labor is done by unpaid professional volunteers.
The Colorado Search and Rescue Association acknowledged that beginners to the backcountry contact 911 in dubious situations and that crews are occasionally overworked. However, we continue to believe that charging for services is not the solution. Experience has shown us that people frequently put off calling rescuers or even purposefully avoid them when they fear being charged.
This report was written by Alex Wigglesworth, a staff writer for the Times.
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