Why do we bother searching for unprepared fools?
October 8th, 2009 by Brad HeapThe Herald is reporting this morning of the expensive helicopter rescue of a missing tramper last night:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10601958
What fails to surprise me is just how unprepared this personal was:
A lost tramper was rescued from Tongariro National Park early today.
The Wellington-based Westpac rescue helicopter found the man just south of Waikune, 30km northeast of Raetihi, about 2am.
“This was one of the trickiest searches I have been involved in,” said helicopter crewman Colin Larsen.
“We had intermittent contact with the lost man via his cellphone and he was extremely difficult to locate due to the terrain, his dark clothing and his location stuck amongst 80 foot trees.”
Conditions in the area were cold but there was very little wind.
The helicopter crew said they understood the man was a visiting Swiss National in his early 20s. He was uninjured other than being quite cold and a bit battered and bruised.
He is really lucky to be alive.
- Missing in near freezing, if not sub zero temperatures.
- Dark clothing
- Tramping solo
- In the middle of huge trees
You really cannot get much more silly than that.
LandSAR do a fantastic job in NZ and there are plenty of people who genuinely need them even when they have taken all precautions into account.
But going solo into an alpine environment with dark clothing is essentially a death wish.
Seriously LandSAR need to implement a policy whereby if you have not adequately prepared for a trip and you need rescuing then you should foot the bill for it.
Pretty much you never ever go tramping alone, let alone with dark clothing. That is why they make the alpine based clothing bright colors, they are shades of yellow for a reason. Tramping is a survival adventure not a fashion show, how many more people need to die before the vast majority of the population realises that?
The photo (taken by me) below shows how shitty the weather can get during the day in the Tongariro National Park so how much worse would it have been in pitch black darkness?
