Would it happen in NH? S&R tells someone to hunker down for the night

[JoshandBaron]

Not sure where you live but most people pay some sort of State Income Tax. Which in most States and or towns pays for infrastructure like ambulances.

You're making his point.

 

[skiguy]

You're making his point.

Maybe from your point of view but not mine. If I go to Vermont and I am from New Hampshire I don’t expect some resident from Vermont who pays infrastructure costs to pay for my ambulance ride if I get hurt.

 

[TEO]

You don't get a bill from the hospital ER dept? I find that hard to believe. You want to limit hikers on the trail as a solution? You and I think nothing alike that is for sure. As far as being an elitist? yeah ok.

A SAR operation isn't analogous to an ER visit. It is analogous to a 911 response, e.g. police, fire department, and/or ambulance. Re. limiting hikers, read my post that I linked to. (N.B. Satire alert.) I'm not calling you elitist, I'm saying that hiking has a history of elitism and if you start billing for every SAR, then that only increases the elitism in hiking.

Maybe from your point of view but not mine. If I go to Vermont and I am from New Hampshire I don’t expect some resident from Vermont who pays infrastructure costs to pay for my ambulance ride if I get hurt.

If you are at an AirBnB in Vermont and there's a fire or a break-in or there's a medical crisis, I'm pretty sure that you won't get a bill from the local fire department, police department, or ambulance service.

I will add that if the State of New York is going to invest in attracting tourists to the Adirondacks, then they should also be investing in the DEC Rangers to respond to increased number of calls.

 

[dug]

Define "hiking".

I've amassed many thousands of miles in my life. Some are rugged peaks from Newfoundland to Alaska. Some are on sandy beaches. Some on rolling hills, open fields, tree farms, river valleys, or along dirt roads. Some are within a designated Nationally designated area (i.e. Forest or Park), some on a state park, some on my own land, and some on just undeveloped woods. Many were harder and in some cases, more 'dangerous' than what many consider a "hike". I took lots of pictures, some of which made it to FB and most that did not.

 

[Grey J]

I would just add that even though my visits to NH are relatively short, consisting of 4-7 days in a typical year, I always purchase the Hike Safe Card to support the Search and Rescue Fund as much as for the peace of mind it provides. I consider it more of a donation than protection, but it serves both purposes.

 

[Mike P.]

None of us and certainly no SAR folks want to see anyone die, no matter how reckless or stupid. You'd hope the guy standing in front of a truck would move. You would hope people attacking a rock face with no gear, knowledge or skills will turnaround before they fall to their deaths.

To Dug's point, define hiking? We'd come up with different things, I can't even do it myself. I track mileage I walk on rail trails as a walk, not a hike, although I will let scouts count them as hiking towards their Hiking Merit Badge. OTOH, I count "hiking Belfry" in the Adirondacks as a hike. (4/10ths of a mile and 120 feet elevation gain)

Your Hike Safe Card isn't a license to be reckless and as we are the choir, I'm not telling anyone here anything new. Should the National Forest contribute to costs when it's visitors need help? Tourist businesses are happy when National Forest visitors buy meals, food and lodging in NH and ME (WMNF,) Does the WMNF pay NH taxes? No answers to the questions are going to be loved by all.

 

[maineguy]

I think that there needs to be a different phone number for hikers to dial requesting assistance in hiking such as 5678 (LOST). This would be manned (or automatically routed to) by personnel familiar with the area and hiking trails, etc. 911 should only be used for real emergencies such as serious accidents, medical emergencies, etc. The use of a special number would eliminate any delay caused by the routing of calls to F&G. SAR, etc as well as free up 911 operators for real emergencies.

When I was stationed at the PNSY there were 4 digit phone numbers for different types of emergencies such as fire, flooding, medical and radiological.

 

[Tom Rankin]

I think that there needs to be a different phone number for hikers to dial for assistance in hiking such as 5678 (LOST).

NY has this - 833-NYS-RANGers

 

[JoshandBaron]

Does the WMNF pay NH taxes?

Federal lands aren't subject to local taxes, however, the gov't does make payments to host communities. Pages 42-45 show payments made by the WMNF to NH: https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2022-04/Final-2021-10-2-Report.pdf

 

[skiguy]

If you are at an AirBnB in Vermont and there's a fire or a break-in or there's a medical crisis, I'm pretty sure that you won't get a bill from the local fire department, police department, or ambulance service.

OK here we go again. My comment was specific to hiking not staying in a hotel or Air BnB. Guess it's time to respond to your circular logic again. Must be a pretty swank Air BnB. Guess you might want to think twice if you go for a walk in downtown Burlington and get hit by a car.

https://vtdigger.org/2016/07/13/burlington-hikes-ambulance-fees/

https://legislature.vermont.gov/statutes/section/24/071/02689

 

[peakbagger]

BTW, the town of Gorham billed me $850 for an ambulance ride from Wildcat to AVH in Berlin. My Anthem plan only paid a portion of it.

 

[skiguy]

BTW, the town of Gorham billed me $850 for an ambulance ride from Wildcat to AVH in Berlin. My Anthem plan only paid a portion of it.

……and you live right up the road, and I assume buy your groceries locally and fill your car with gas or plug it in to charge. So why is it a big deal when a couple youngsters wonder off trail and decide to go rock climbing then get charged for needing a rescue. Not to mention their fine was a fraction of what your ambulance drive was. I guess it could get real sticky if during an incident where SAR sends you a bill and you get another from the local municipality for an ambulance ride from the trailhead to the hospital. Thanks for posting your experience.

 

[iAmKrzys]

Honestly, I really doubt that a random NH visitor would know & remember any special numbers to call in case they need assistance while hiking. 911 is probably the only number that everyone is likely to know, and even this is not so obvious if you consider that visitors come from around the world (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emergency_telephone_numbers) which IMHO is a total mess when it comes to making emergency calls.

If it is difficult to fund or justify funding mountain rescue service, which seems to be a big part of this conversation, personally I don't have an issue with being charged for the service as long as there are reasonably priced insurance options available.

A situation like the one described in original post would likely not occur if not for greatly enhanced cell phone coverage over last 20 years. This is great for real emergencies but at the same time it enables some people to push their boundaries and venture beyond what they are prepared for.

 

[hikerbrian]

FWIW, when my wife was bit by a dog at my parents' house in NH, we received a bill for the ambulance service to Southern NH Medical Center, and we received a quite large bill for the ambulance ride from SNHMC to Mass General. And of course we received a bill for the medical care that was provided start to finish. Our insurance paid a large portion of all of these. We did not receive a bill for the initial police response.

I'm with sierra on this one: personal responsibility. The further from the action the funding, the more pissed people get. No one wants to pay for others' poor decisions, especially when they get nothing in return (hey, let's talk about student loan 'forgiveness'!!!! I probably shouldn't light that fuse, but I think it's a useful analogy; and I'm guessing peoples' thoughts on that are highly correlated ideologically with how we're all proposing to deal with SAR costs). Considering how much revenue the state of NH derives from White Mountain tourism, it probably makes sense to fund some amount of SAR - tolls and room/meals tax both are massive piles of money pulled directly from tourists. But for large expenditures perhaps an insurance model makes sense, like the HikeSafe card. Still, I'd argue any cost beyond, say, a basic 2-person search to a known/pinged location should go directly to the individual/group requiring said services; and it is their responsibility to have some kind of insurance if they don't want to pay out of pocket. I don't think taxing social media is viable or fair. It doesn't matter (to me) how many pictures I or anyone else post on social media - if someone else gets themselves into trouble, that's their responsibility, not mine. And if I try to follow some route Marc-Andre Leclerc put up in the Cascades and I get myself hurt or killed, it's not his fault for having done it first or having talked about it. We all make our own decisions and should largely live with the consequences.

 

[OldEric]

There is no reason not to charge for every rescue. It doesn't matter if the rescuee is some highly esteemed experience individual who has an oopsie or some out of state kid tripping shrooms - the effort and time and $$$ for the S&R are going to be similar. Leave the politics/witch-hunt/local bias out of the decision to charge. And expect most people will have some form of insurance (AAC or whatever) specific for it.

But if I am paying for it I want the rescue to be done by competent professionals. Not some desk bound pencil pusher whose biggest exercise is to waddle down to the stream and check fishing licenses. And gets "training" (paid by tax payer $$$) once a year. I want professionals who are eager to do it and won't whine to the media about how hard it is for them afterwards.

I do think you should distinguish between "search" and "rescue". For searching you can throw the swarms of volunteers who like to do that sort of thing out there to stomp the trails. But for the rescue part I want the real deal. And a lot more use of helicopters (which may also require some dedicated rescue pilots)

 

[JoshandBaron]

How do we feel about the funding of lifeguards?

 

[dug]

There is no reason not to charge for every rescue. It doesn't matter if the rescuee is some highly esteemed experience individual who has an oopsie or some out of state kid tripping shrooms - the effort and time and $$$ for the S&R are going to be similar. Leave the politics/witch-hunt/local bias out of the decision to charge. And expect most people will have some form of insurance (AAC or whatever) specific for it.

But if I am paying for it I want the rescue to be done by competent professionals. Not some desk bound pencil pusher whose biggest exercise is to waddle down to the stream and check fishing licenses. And gets "training" (paid by tax payer $$$) once a year. I want professionals who are eager to do it and won't whine to the media about how hard it is for them afterwards.

I do think you should distinguish between "search" and "rescue". For searching you can throw the swarms of volunteers who like to do that sort of thing out there to stomp the trails. But for the rescue part I want the real deal. And a lot more use of helicopters (which may also require some dedicated rescue pilots)

If a rescuer shows up, do you interview them and if deemed insufficient, do you shoo them away and tell them to send something better?

 

[sierra]

There is no reason not to charge for every rescue. It doesn't matter if the rescuee is some highly esteemed experience individual who has an oopsie or some out of state kid tripping shrooms - the effort and time and $$$ for the S&R are going to be similar. Leave the politics/witch-hunt/local bias out of the decision to charge. And expect most people will have some form of insurance (AAC or whatever) specific for it.

But if I am paying for it I want the rescue to be done by competent professionals. Not some desk bound pencil pusher whose biggest exercise is to waddle down to the stream and check fishing licenses. And gets "training" (paid by tax payer $$$) once a year. I want professionals who are eager to do it and won't whine to the media about how hard it is for them afterwards.

I do think you should distinguish between "search" and "rescue". For searching you can throw the swarms of volunteers who like to do that sort of thing out there to stomp the trails. But for the rescue part I want the real deal. And a lot more use of helicopters (which may also require some dedicated rescue pilots)

I'm going to assume most, if not all the points you made are pure satire.

 

[TEO]

How do we feel about the funding of lifeguards?

Oh! Don't get me started on lifeguards. Why should I, when I am reasponsibly mowing my lawn nowhere near an overrun beach full of lazy drunks frying themselves to a crisp, pay for a lifeguard to attempt a rescue because some lecherous slob is leering at young bikini clad sunbathers, instead of bothering to watch their kid—who they didn't bother to enroll in swim lessons—get eaten by some shark? The rescuee should pay the lifeguards on a per stride/stroke rate from the lifeguard tower to the victim and back. Obviously extra live-saving measures such as mouth-to-mouth, CPR, tourniquet, etc. should incur additional fees, as should the removal, replacement, and raking of the blood-stained sand.

 

[hikerbrian]

Why should I, when I am responsibly mowing my lawn nowhere near an overrun beach full of lazy drunks frying themselves to a crisp, pay for a lifeguard? ...

Why would you pay for a lifeguard? Honest question. Under what circumstances would you be paying for the lifeguard but not utilizing their services? The lake in my town has entrance and parking fees that pay for lifeguards and upkeep. If I go to the Cape, there are parking fees that pay the lifeguards, both at the town and National Seashore beaches. When I go to the pool I swim at regularly, there are membership fees, from which lifeguard pay is pulled. I wouldn't expect anyone who isn't using the pool/beach to be paying the lifeguards. And I don't think anyone does. What am I missing?