Does anyone know the background to this one?
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search-and-rescue/news/article.cfm?c_id=84&objectid=10681198
According to the second paragraph, police are claiming they have the power to bill the two people for rescue if they choose to. The second to last paragraph quotes a police officer saying they can bill people who are found to "be at fault". What does this mean?
From the Herald's description it sounds as if the police think they did some silly things that aren't generally accepted ways of acting, and they probably did, but this is hardly unusual. Maybe there's information missing that wasn't reported. But isn't it supposed to be a case of genuinely wasting police time before they're allowed to consider charging? (I thought that guy who was rescued from the Ruahines about 3 times in a row doing the same thing some time back might have qualified!)
Youve got to look at it though, heavy rain warnings for that area and a flooded river and still chose to cross.... "Severe weather warnings for the area including rain and snow had been in place for several days"
Its around $1500 p/hr for a chopper to be dispatched.
I personally think they should have just waited it out instead of panicing and raising the alarm early
I hope these women learnt a lesson. If they do then they should not be charged.
In the end it is better that the alarm is given early before the situation gets any worse. If people think they are going to get charged for a rescue then they will delay making the call.
I have heard of one instance here in NZ where a European tourist who was injured was actually hiding from a helicopter fearing that he would get a bill. Searchers found him by following a trail of dripping blood.
that happened up on banks peninsula where a japanese girl was too embaressed and hid from the searchers
but I agree that if people become afraid of having to pay the bill more and more people are gonna get in deeper crap when they cant get out but dont want to make the call
Yep, no argument that they were acting quite silly, at least based on what's been reported. I'm just surprised that the Police are actively considering billing them. I always thought it was a very tricky thing to do legally, partly because of the potential problems down the line that pmcke brought up.
There was another one in January when the harbourmaster for the Queenstown Lakes District Council was planning to try and extract payment from a couple of kayakers they rescued. It might not have been covered by any specific legislation or protocols about SAR because no alarm was officially raised. The council simply flew a helicopter up the river when an empty kayak floated down, and discovered a couple of guys who accepted a lift. The harbourmaster then took offence that they then refused to pay for it. I'm not sure what came out of that one, but in April it was supposedly on its way towards the Small Claims Tribunal for a $4000 helicopter bill, according to a relative of one of the people involved: http://www.windy.gen.nz/index.php/archives/424/comment-page-1#comment-10794
I think these cops sometimes get a little bit wound up and threaten to charge, and there is probably no legal reason why they can't. However I think once they sit down and think about it, and as long as someone has learnt something and is sufficiently contrite, then it is probably best they don't.
Many other countries do charge for SAR services so I suppose there is always going to be the precident for it.
It'd get messy if and when volunteers are involved, and you could probably also end up with lawsuits around the competency of search officials. (Is it reasonable to charge $100,000 for a search if someone could argue that a $10,000 search would have made more sense? Yuck!)
I can't find the relevant legislation, anyway, except for 14B in the Civil Aviation Act http://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0098/latest/DLM215773.html?p=1#DLM215773 which says nothing about charging costs to rescued parties. ACC usually seems to pick up the bill if there's an injury, and I *thought* it fell back to the Police to absorb if there wasn't. I don't know where I read it, but I'll look tonight. Maybe I misunderstood something.
Herald/Hawkes Bay Today reference here to the recent pulling of a tourist off a cliff-face: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search-and-rescue/news/article.cfm?c_id=84&objectid=10774393&ref=rss
After the author rants about people's stupidity for a while, the end of the article starts pushing another line about rescue costs, and states: "The hourly rate for the rescue chopper was unavailable but the airborne rescue service operation cost $2.2 million a year to run, a spokesman said."
Surely it's not $2.2 million a year just for rescuing people, is it? They'd be doing other things between all that, wouldn't they??
probably depends on the person making the decision.
if they want to deter people from repeating something in the future and set an example then they probably think of charging.
i twisted my knee once. it was on the deception river where they run the coast to coast mountain run, someone was training for the run and he ran off to get help. it was in the eighties, we didnt have a radio. and plb's didnt exist then. i couldnt walk out. a few hours later an air force iroquois came thudding down the valley. they flew me to christchurch where a couple of policemen were waiting for me
they were very direct when tehy spoke to me, the only think they kept asking me was "who called the helicopter"
I was told later by trampers that my answer would determine whether i paid for the helicopter....
only approved organisations like the police are approved to request rescue helicopters and they werent aware of it being called. I didnt know who called it, I told them what happened and the rest i was ignorant to.... in the end they assumed that DOC had called the helicopter since i was in a national park and doc would a likely port of call at the next hut....
PLB's have made things a lot more straight forward, but there is still the question of whether they will charge you because they think you've been irresponsible enough.
i ran into a guy in the rimutakas once, it was summer, he told a story how he lit a fire and the fire spread quickly to the surrounding bush... there was a fire ban on at the time... I read later he was charged for the operation to put out the fire, i guess it's similar for search and rescue?
i think tourists would alerady be wary about summoning a helicopter, since in quite a few countries you might end up footing the bill.....
nepal charges people I think if they have to get evacuated from altitude sickness...
Fire is another case all together and there are a few rorts around it. If the fire service cant establish who lit a fire they can apportion the costs around all those known to be in the area (within 30km)at the time the fire started. I have been offered special insurance as an extra on my 4wd insurance to cover this. ie cover for a fire that I had nothing to do with and possibly didnt even know had happened.
There have been a few cases of people accidentally causing a fire and getting the bill. A bush fire can cost a half million plus so if you get hit on this one and cant convince your insurance to pay you could lose your house.
Rescue used to be that if you ask for a chopper you could be billed but now I think Police have total discretion. As these days one of the first things they do is send a chopper over the area it would be hard to bill. In the old days if offered a chopper I would of said no please send a tramping party and stretcher knowing that the police would override that and then the chopper was there call.
