wel
spoke to someone who is involved in sar
that guy who was missing for four days, he'd told his family not to call police.
not sure how much he told them other than he'd be gone a few days
his favourite programmes are i shoudnt be alive and man vs wild, he was doing a bear grylls trying to stay alive in the bush for several days without gear... that's why he took so much food.... and that why he covered so much ground.....
Shame he didn't take some extra brain cells with him!
SAR should send him the bill
Or better still, send it to Mr Grylls
As we discussed a couple of months ago at http://tramper.co.nz/?id=1073&view=topic&offset=1 , if actually true, and if he was *intentionally* going out of his way to *knowingly* waste Police time (which seems unlikely), he could be criminally charged under the Summary Offences Act.
There's no legal mechanism to invoice him for SAR costs, and I'm good with that.
not sure if he was trying to waste police time, he wasnt expecting his family to call police at all for several days but his family werent happy and called them..
"There's no legal mechanism to invoice him for SAR costs, and I'm good with that".
I agree with you but I do find this kind of thing really annoying(if true). One day I may make a silly mistake, get injured, or trapped, and require rescuing and I applaud the nobility of the SAR model that allows that.
However these kind of incidents are just plain reckless and go in the same basket with those IDIOTS who fail to identify their target and shoot people.
Sending out SAR to look for these morons is the same as sending an ambulance to patch up drunks who injure themselves.
The options for dealing with these things are limited however. Community service perhaps... or better still, bring back the stocks in the public square and we can throw rotten fruit at them.
There that's better, I've had my rant :)
there was an article on tv that showed the route he took, he walked clear across the hunuas, he was close to being able to exit the eastern end of the park he must have seen from the ridge top that he was close to the edge of the bush, but he changed direction and made a full circle back toward where he came from, he covered around 40k's he wasnt just thrashing through thick bush slowly.... how many ale bodied people stay lost for three days in the hunuas... if you're on a track you can walk clear across the hunuas in a day without busting a gut. he had a ridiculous amount of food with him for a day walk, something like a dozen sandwiches pus other food and drink. the official version never stacked up...
Part of me would like to see the criminal law side fixed so it takes more account of SAR. Right now it only seems coincidental that people could be prosecuted for wasting police time, because at present it happens that Police are responsible for coordinating that type of SAR op. The law doesn't acknowledge all the non-Police time and resources that can be wasted through someone acting like an idiot.
At the same time I'd want to be careful what I wished for. There's a lot of subjectivity, and nearly everyone who gets lost or hurt is an idiot in someone's eyes.
As far as I know, the wasting-time thing has *never* been prosecuted in SAR cases, probably because it's so hard to prove. As @waynowski pointed out, Ronnie Fong probably wasn't *intending* to cause problems. He just (apparently) did a ridiculously moronic job of whatever the hell he was doing. For however many people wander into the bush hopelessly prepared or intending to do stupid things, how many of them do so intentionally to waste the resources of those who voluntarily drop everything to look for them?
That's my rant. :P
dont think anyone has ever been charged for accidental wasting police time. Its always some that knew what they were doing was likely to waste there time.
Just being an idiot isnt enough unfortunately.
If they were charged, it'd have to have been deliberate intent to cause wasteful deployment of Police resources. http://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1981/0113/latest/DLM53580.html
