In the case of a recovery like this is his estate liable for the cost of retrieving his body?
There’s also going to be an autopsy. Does the estate have to pay for that?
Do they legally “have to” recover the body?
(Personally, if I had been in that situation, I’d have just preferred they left me there to be recycled, but anyway. . . .)
You sure about that?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011105922_apwasthelensrescue.html
Eh, obviously not now, but in the early reports of the recovery one of them mentioned that the autopsy would would be to determine whether he died of hypothermia, injuries, or some combination.
Just a wee note to OP (not a nasty, snide remark - please don’t misconstrue this :)) - living in the UK I’ve heard nothing about this guy. There’s enough from Brian Blessed’s link to work out what has been going on, but in the cases that there are not such thoughtfully provided posts it could be dreadfully confusing. So when the news is not clearly worldwide (and if it kills one chap who is not a world leader it is probably not worldwide) please do let us know at least what you are talking about, even if no external links are forthcoming.
Cheers,
AL
Cool. Good Point. Without researching, though, the rest went over my head. To me, Brian Blessed’s iconic role is Prince Vultan.
I’m sure he’s proud of that potboiler role.
Heh didn’t realise that this was so obscure, but google it seems that it was…
We could sing some Alice Cooper at your wake, I Wanna Be Ejected…
I wouldn’t in this particular instance; they didn’t know for sure he was dead until recovery. I don’t care what happens to my body after I’m done using it, but I really do want to be done using it first.
Since this hasn’t been answered, I’ll provide my uncited guess based on past similar stories: Technically, yes, most organizations can charge hikers and their families/estates for rescue/recovery operations. However, it seems like they usually just build this stuff into the budget of the various rescue organizations and/or fund it with donations.
The only times I can remember the possibility of actually charging coming up were either repeated rescues of the same people, or rescues/recoveries from circumstances that the rescuees were clearly warned not to do in advance.
So I think (no cite, no certainty) that good faith rescues and recoveries are often done “free”, regardless of the legal ability to charge. In this case, the victim was a careful hiker who knew (and had trained others) in what not to do, and so clearly didn’t mean to/realize he was placing himself in danger.
Many rescue groups don’t want to charge because it can lead to more problems - it can make people reluctant to ask for help and then end up even worse off.
The body was recovered by the US military, specifically a rescue helicopter and crew from Whidbey Island NAS. Consider it the cost of “doing business.” Since rescues are their business (military rescues) this could be written off as an unscheduled training drill, regardless of the fact the rescue was a civilian.
As to the larger issue at hand, it still is the cost of doing business. It’s why we all pay for fire and police protection, even though many of us will seldom, if ever, require their services. You can apply it to the military as well as mentioned above. We’ve had other threads as to whether those who partake in high(er) risk playtimes should pay for their own potential misfortunes and the opinions always vary.
There had to be a potential rescue attempt. Without an attempt, there was no basis for an eventual recovery. The key is potential. It appears the risk to a recovery was the same of a rescue. However, during a potential rescue, had it been somewhat easy to determine with minimal risk that it was going to be a recovery, and that recovery posed a much greater risk in itself, then the decision tree would have been to determine if a recovery had to be effected, regardless of the cost. It turned out that the larger rescue helicopter, combined with more favorable weather, probably made the decision just that much easier.