Should SAR charge for ALL rescues?

overseas it leads to people delaying calling for rescues and lives get lost, searches become ore difficult and SAR get put in more risky situations.'things such as waiting till dark to call for rescue can make a search a lot more dangerous for helicopters or medical conditions for people needing rescuing deteriorate...

Sar is largly funded out of ACC and it is one of the best systems in the world. I understand what you are saying but it doesnt fit with the ACC philosophy of no blame. If we we can fix the ankle of a drug dealer fleeing the cops after being caught selling to kids why shouldnt we help someone that thinks jeans make trendy winter tramping wear? Also Ive seen blisters I wouldnt be able to walk on. Some people always get blisters. Im glad Im not one of them

Perhaps the Police and Mt safety etc could be more forceful in giving a bollocking for rescues that are clearly due to shocking decision making. They seem to just say "they made the right decision in having a PLB" or some such They put pilots and rescuers lives at risk, through stupid decisions ie traveling tops when forecasts say they shouldn't etc maybe the message will get across Bit difficult to critizise (or charge) when someone feels they cant cope, once theyrve got into trouble. like lost, injured

again they don want to put people off... i spoke to a sar guy who went searching for a guy "lost" in the hunuas talking to his family they built up a picture of someone raining to join the special forces who was actually likely to be doing a bear grylls and wasnt lost but wouldnt tell his family what he was really doing, he moved a long distance without emerging from the park for days.... police and sar knew he was likely wasting their time but they never officially let on to anyone. there was a case that sounded similar about a teenager who got lost on mt taranaki, ignored advice to not move if he got lost and was highly mobile, crossed a road and walked back into the bush overnight... ignored sirens of cars that were going up and down the road.... i saw a photo of him after he was found , with a big smile on his face, i couldnt help thinking it could be the look of someone who'd got away with something... there was official praise for the teenager, his dad claimed he did as he was told and head down towards civilisation which was the opposite of what he was briefed on the trip which was stay still.... i never came across any interviews with the teen to see what his side of the story was... they wont come out and criticise, they dont want people avoiding sar for fear of being harshly criticised... i've never seen journalists write much other than the official line.... the maritime safety authority rescue coordination center always put out the same message how it was good that people had a beacon and set it off.... nothing about the lack of skill or correct decision making had caused an unecessary search and rescue... reads like the Disney verison of what really goes on

Before PLB's pretty much the only way SAR knew to go looking for you was either an overdue report or someone making a desperate hike out to seek help. Either way it was pretty much guaranteed you really needed a rescue. Justification was not an issue and most people had no problem with the idea of SAR as a universal, free service. Indeed we should pause to reflect on what a remarkable, astonishing, heroic service it is. I needed it once, many years ago and I remain grateful for such a treasure. It's important we think this through and understand how to adapt to change. Because PLB's *have* changed the game. Nowadays it's possible to imagine scenarios where a group makes poor decisions, pushes their luck, or just get tired and unhappy ... with the underlying idea that they can always "pull the pin" and the magic kerosene budgie will come and get them out of there. That feels like cheating, it's not justified and it undermines the rationale for SAR in the long run. Of course in pre-PLB days it was entirely possible that rescues were triggered for much the same reasons. All a PLB does is lower the likely threshold of hardship and suffering to get to the same point. Trapped at Tarn Ridge Hut in a howling gale for five days, my overdue problem was solved because I had just enough mobile reception to talk to the SAR guy in Masterton. I was able to let him know where I was, we talked through the options and he let my partner know I was OK. If all I had was a PLB, I would have been in a tricky conundrum, I was perfectly safe and happy, but I knew my partner was going to call SAR tommorrow, so using it to identify my location was a good idea. But in the conditions no-one was going to reach me without undue risk and drama. It's the one-way only nature of a PLB's communication that is an element in play here. It forces SAR into a 'one size fits all' response to every possible incident. Improved or alternative technologies that permit better discrimination between various scenarios would go some distance to reducing problematic callouts. It doesn't address the question of those who are careless, or foolishly use their PLB with a cavalier disregard for the costs involved. Overall it's probably best such people are pulled out of the bush early, even if the rest of us would prefer Darwin to have his way with them. Leaving them to blunder on deeper into trouble only compounds the risks and costs. I don't have the whole answer here, but the conversation is worth having.

A good book on this topic I've recently read is [Critical Hours: Search and Rescue in the White Mountains](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B076HVZFS3/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o08_?ie=UTF8&psc=1).

Survive!: Remarkable Tales from the New Zealand Outdoors https://www.amazon.com/Survive-Remarkable-Tales-Zealand-Outdoors-ebook/dp/B00TQ6ZL0S

"Before PLB's pretty much the only way SAR knew to go looking for you was either an overdue report or someone making a desperate hike out to seek help. Either way it was pretty much guaranteed you really needed a rescue. Justification was not an issue and most people had no problem with the idea of SAR as a universal, free service." When I started tramping it was a case of if you had mountain radio you could call for help but if you had gone pair shaped you told them what was going on and let them decide to send a chopper. If you asked for one you got a bill. Never put it to the test so dont know how true it really was. As for pre plb times I know a person that would still have both legs if he had a plb. 2nd day of a 10 day solo trip his foot was crushed in a rockfall. Hi lost his leg below the knee to gangrene.

Well, yeah. Why should we fix the ankle of a drug dealer fleeing the cops after being caught selling to kids, for free ?. Charge for it, if SAR needs it, same as St John ambulance. You want to die of exposure to save $50, that's on you. Might re-focus people, a little more, on taking responsibility for their behavior ?.