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The number of rescues in the wilderness area around Mount St. Helens continues to grow. And it attracted criticism that the actions of those before they asked for help were reckless.
One man, 21, kayaked on a waterfall and suffered spinal cord injuries. The 54-year-old woman sparkled Mount St. Helens as she glowed down the snowy slopes and suffered a head injury while hitting the rocks.
Each May rescue in remote mountain counties took six hours of effort. And one West Coast Sheriff is now pondering the bill to the worst victims.
The idea includes a new county ordinance that allows a person to cite “if it turns out to be reckless or negligent in the action that the search and rescue is required to respond.”
“While we are trying to regain the financial burdens that have been placed on our county, we need to find creative ways to stop the current actions we are witnessing,” the Summer Sheriff said in a statement. “The ordinance is still in the planning stage, but I think it will be an additional deterrent for those taking exceptional risks.”
The Sheriff’s Office said many missions that took four to nine hours to complete the rescue had surged in May in Skamania County.
Skamania County is not alone. In southern Utah, the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office announced Tuesday it would require permission for the most distant and challenging slot canyon, noting “a significant increase in search and rescue operations.”
Nationally, the number of search and rescue operations in the national park was 3,308 in 2023, which can accompany hikers who get lost in the backcountry from children apart from their parents.
The idea of forcing irresponsible hikers to pay for rescue has appeared previously.
In New Hampshire, the state says people may need to pay back the costs to rescue them. One way to avoid such charges is to buy “$25 per person, $35 per family) to support the state’s search and rescue efforts.
One of the most recent rescues that attracted attention involved a pair of hikers who had to be rescued after hiking despite forecasts of rain, sleet and snow in mid-January, leaving the notable path and fearing they would be hypothermia. Rescuers had to break the trail to reach the hiker for three-quarters of the miles on steep terrain. “We found the pair to be inadequately prepared for the expected conditions,” the Fish and Games division said in a news release, with neither of them hiking secure cards.
A massive search and rescue operation was launched in California in 2013 for two Orange County hikers, Nicholas Sendoya, 19, and Kindal Jack, 18. The phone they used to make the call stopped working before authorities could identify their location.
Cendoya was found three days later, wearing shoes half a mile from the car, and the next day Jack was shoulder-strapped shoulders. Authorities have asked some government officials to repay the $160,000 rescue bill after they found methamphetamine in a vehicle the pair had parked before the hike.
Cendoya pleaded guilty to one count of felony of drug possession but was eligible for the drug scattering program. Court records show that the case was dismissed in 2015.
However, the judge denied the demand that the Orange County Fire Department officials reclaim the $55,000 they spent searching for the pair, saying the fire department was not a victim of the crime and could not seek compensation.
In response, California lawmakers have changed the law to allow government officials to seek a refund for future rescues on certain conditions.
The law signed into law in 2015 allows the county or city to seek a refund of the costs of the rescue if it was “caused by intentional conduct in knowing a violation” of the law “influenced in the event of an “unusual use of methods” and “provoked the person’s criminal conviction.”
However, the county cannot collect if the rescued person cannot afford to pay. The county also cannot raise more than $12,000 unless the rescued person is convicted of a felony.
Orange County did not recover the costs, but the hikers faced other legal actions and were financially accountable.
Jack was sued by a volunteer rescuer who was injured during the search, according to the rescuer’s lawyer. Volunteers accusing Jack of putting rescuers at risk received $100,000 as part of a legal settlement paid out from the homeowner’s insurance policy held by Jack’s mother. The rescuer’s lawyer said Cendoya had settled with the rescuer for an undisclosed amount.
Some search and rescue groups do not support the idea of charging people in need of rescue. “Anyone who feels that he has to delay notifying appropriate authorities of a search or rescue case, fearing a possible accusation, should never be done.”
In a 2009 position paper, the association stated that most services rescue people in the US mountains are “provided by a team of unpaid professional rescue climbers who give up their own time to participate in search and rescue operations.”
“The typical search and rescue mission is completed within a few hours, and the majority of work done by unpaid professional volunteers is generally very low,” said Charlie Symansky, president of Mountain Rescue Assun, in a statement.
“It’s true that teams are sometimes overtaxed and backcountry newcomers will call 911 in suspicious circumstances,” Colorado Search and Rescue Assn. I said. “But we still don’t believe that a claim for service is the answer. From experience, when people think that accusations are made, they often call rescuers, or even intentionally avoid them.”
Times staff writer Alex Wigglesworth contributed to this report.
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