It seems the state of New Hampshire is billing people who need to be rescued if they were 'negligent." Most rescues are quite routine, the average bill is for $75. One guy was lost for a couple of nights and paid $16,000 for a helicopter that had to come and get him.
We see the same sort of ethical dilemma when millionaires on yachts need huge search-and-rescue operations at sea.
Should the emergency services bill people for their services?
I say no. I do not want someone to waste a single minute worrying about cost when they need rescue, or a fire truck or an ambulance. It is better when a person calls at the first hint of trouble. We do not want to discourage people from asking for help when the situation is relatively easy to resolve.
I think that in order to bill a rescuee, the state should have to go to court and prove negligence on the part of the person rescued. If they can’t prove it in court, or if the costs are too small to bother going to court over, then they shouldn’t have the authority to bill the rescued person by administrative fiat.
It looks like they’re mostly going after people who make really stupid and careless mistakes, so I’m OK with this. I’ve always said that willful stupidity should HURT. Going out in hazardous conditions, when it’s not necessary, can endanger dozens of innocent rescuers. It’s one thing if someone is caught in an unlikely natural disaster. It’s quite another when someone is going into an area or situation that’s known to be dangerous, especially if they are underprepared, or not prepared at all.
I would like to use Colorado as a better and more expensive example. Back country skiers who deliberately ski in closed areas and then need rescue should pay for their rescue. If for no other reason than to discourage the practice. Every time those morons go across the lines for an adrenaline rush and then get hurt or stuck in an avalanche, they put their eventual rescuers in the same potential peril through no fault of their own.
Sure, rescuers sign up for that risk when they don their badges, uniforms, etc. But they shouldn’t have to be put in even more dangerous situations, rescuing those who can’t stay within the lines, especially after those danger areas are clearly marked. IF the thought of having to pay for the $1000’s of dollars that a potential high alpine rescue will cost, persuades skiers to stay in bounds, I’m all for it.
Aren’t we already paying for these services? Common good and all that? If a policeman saves my life, do I now tip him? (Okay, that was snide. In fact, I’d actually buy the guy’s family Thanksgiving dinners for the rest of his life.)
But **Lynn **is correct: stupidity should be painful. If I deliberately place myself in a dangerous situation, should I have the expectation that someone will risk their life to save mine? I think not.
Unfortunately, who will bell the cat? Was I less stupid than you because I had a map and you didn’t so therefore the state should pick up my tab but you get billed? It’s a slippery slope. I’d like to think we live in a more altruistic society.
We are already too litigious; it’s not like the court dockets are empty these days. But I guess lawyers gotta eat too.
I say we DO want to discourage people from being so negligent that they need to be rescued and DO want to impose the costs of a rescue on those that are both responsible for incurring the costs and in the best position to reduce them (i.e., this is an example of “internalizing the externalities” so that people can correctly price proposed courses of action). Also, the rescuee can challenge the bill in court if he thinks he wasn’t negligent or the bill is excessive.
What is negligent? Skiing in a closed area with posted signs, sure. But what about going backwoods camping when you don’t know what you are doing as well as you think you do? What if you are crossing a stream and slip and break your leg–is that negligent because you didn’t look carefully enough where you stepped? What if you don’t realize how much you are sweating and get dehydrated and pass out? What if you just misread the map and get lost?
To use an example from real life: Norway attracts base jumpers from around the world. In most places, base jumping from cliffs is legal here. However, a small number of cliffs are considered so dangerous that they are off-limits. One of them is the Troll Wall, a truly impressive wall of gneiss which has claimed a depressing number of lives. However, some jumpers break the law and there jump anyway.
If jumpers get stuck or die on the Troll Wall, the only way to get them (or their corpses) down is an expensive rescue operation that frequently puts their rescuers’ lives in danger.
Under those circumstances I don’t understand why base jumpers who get themselves into trouble on the Wall (or their estates…) should not be billed for part of the expense.
Negligence generally means failing to act in the manner that a reasonable person would in any given situation and is a question of fact for the jury to decide. So, none of your examples have an absolute answer; rather, it would depend on the precise facts and the mood of the jury that day.
I’ve done some majorly stupid things in my life (let’s just say I’m paraplegic through no one’s fault but my own and leave it at that). Simply because an activity was stupid I don’t think someone should be billed for the rescue. The world is full of stupid people who underestimate risks and overestimate their abilities.
However I am also a great believer in “do what you are &^$%^ told to do if that order is made by an appropriately authorized and knowledgeable person”. You see signs all over the place saying not to go into the back country because of avalanche hazards, then yes you bloody well should do as you are told. If you don’t and you go bankrupt paying rescue bills, good. Maybe the next person will pay attention. Ditto going out after being told not to during flooding, and various other stupid things that people are properly warned to do or not to do.
I believe, we are made to help each other out of the means God gives us and as He leads us. As such when a person is in need of rescue it is time of the rescuers to give of themselves. In the true sense of giving (and love), it is to give without the expectation of return. It is also trust in God that He will provide for the rescuers, as you reap what you sow.
By making it a business model, IMHO you negate the promise of God to multiply blessings, and get your reward in cash from man.
Not to mention the yearly deluge of tourists that think they can head up a mountain in July with no coat and either freeze to death/must be saved from said mountain.
When god starts filling up the rescue chopper with gas and providing endless free supplies of equipment then we can rely on god to extract us from our own stupidity.
Until then someone has to pay the bills, somehow.
It’s also inhumane of your god to expect rescuers to risk not only their own lives but that their spouses will be left bereaved and their children missing a parent because some stupid jackass decided to, for examples, jump off a cliff he was told not to, or ski through an avalanche zone, or go swimming in a boiling hot spring in Yellowstone. “Give without expectation of return”? You mean, they should work for free and not expect to return home at the end of the day or something?
So the Fish and Game people are making the initial call on negligence, with the state AG’s office reviewing their decision and making the final call. No jury involved.
I’d definitely prefer the burden to be on the state to go to court to establish negligence, rather than have the burden on the rescuees to have to go to court to prove they weren’t negligent.
I agree, but enough people are stupidly ornery that simply being told “don’t do this” will cause them to resist the instruction and do the opposite. Maybe what we need are signs at various points of backcountry ingress or otherwise hazardous locations that, rather than saying “don’t,” give information to the effect of, “between 2006 and the present, 43 people got into trouble here and required rescue/recovery; average cost was $9700; highest cost was $26,000; make the smart choice, cowboy.” Sure, there would be an expense in maintaining the sign(s), but you just roll that into the cost of the rescue operation.
I think it is ok as long as those getting rescued are given a written estimate before they are rescued.
“Sir, I am here to rescue you! Nod if you understand! The expected cost for this service is $325! I will need a $25 deposit…Do you have any money or credit cards on your person? You do? Great! If you agree to these terms please sign here…here…intitial here…a-a-a-nd here…and sign one more time! Do you have anything smaller than two twenties? No? OK, I will be right back with your change! Nod if you understand!”
I do most of my hiking and skiing (both personal and guiding for the Appalachian Mountain Club) in NH so I’ve been following this for years. It’s not really very new, this policy has been in place for the better part of a decade. What’s new, apparently, is going after people’s drivers license if they don’t pay. Only one group that was assessed a fine actually refused to pay so far.
The only people who have been assessed a fine are people who were really beyond the pale. Gross negligence in bringing appropriate gear on a winter group overnight, getting drunk and then calling for help when they got lost, etc. In each of these cases I think any reasonable outdoorsperson would conclude that the parties were indeed reckless.
While some of the rescue efforts are publicly funded and they are organized under the auspices of Fish and Game, much of the actual resources (people and gear) come from volunteer rescue organizations such as Conway S&R and the Pemi S&R. These folks don’t get paid. In many cases, the rescued parties donate money to these folks and F&G counts that as the end of things.
As a regular hiker and occasional S&R volunteer in NH I have no problems with the current situation. The new law about drivers licenses is the only new wrinkle. If you need a rescue in the Grand Canyon you will also receive a bill for several $1000 of helicopter time even if you did nothing wrong. This is nothing new.
There are two issues here–the order of events and the burden of proof. First, everything works like the process described in the link (i.e., bill now, court later)–speeding tickets, indictments for felonies, etc. You could be forced to pay a few hundred dollars just because a cop says you violated the law unless you go to court to fight about it. Second, the burden to prove negligence will be on the state if the rescuee decides to go to court. The fact that they sent the bill first doesn’t change that.
The problem with this argument is that it applies with equal force to police, fire, military defense, and all other public goods provided by the government. I have a big problem with that.
“Yeah, you were pretty stupid to go walking in detroit after dark. It’ll cost you to have the mugging investigated”
“Candles near a christmas tree? Not only are the guys in the building going to sue you, but you’re paying for the fire department’s response.”
I also agree with the argument that the real problem isn’t the stupid rich hikers-it’s ensuring that whatever steps are taken to make people pay for a rescue doesn’t discourage even one reasonable person (who wasn’t negligent) from calling for help because they’re afraid of being charged.