Charity has nothing to do with it. He is in his right and I will defend anyone’s right to be his own crash test dummy. But doing that and then trying to blame everyone around him for the outcome and because it didn’t have the outcome he wanted blame everyone else, that is not his right and the courts need to send a clear message. His trying to make you believe that his foolish actions somehow rise to a special level where he should have the ability to cause repercussions for other agencies is also not his right. And it should be viewed as an attempt to reduce our amount of freedom in the backcountry because if we are not responsible for ourselves out there, if it becomes societies responsibility, then society has the ability to decide how much we are allowed to do. What, when, where and how and even if.
And as always it is very easy to talk about things that might appear to be black and white after the fact.
Some points of interest though.
First, there is no “duty to act” by any SAR team. I don’t know what the reason is that the SAR team didn’t respond or even if they were or were not notified. And if they were notified if it was a proper notification. In the US, there is usually no requirement for a "duty to act" except under certain specific conditions. There is no, and there should be no expectation that they will be helped. The SAR team didn’t respond. There should have been no expectation that they would. Reasons can range from the weather to they felt that there were unsafe conditions to the inability to get the requisite team to make a safe search to the callout wasn’t legitimate. It is after all a volunteer organization.
Second, SAR teams are rarely, if ever, the lead agency on searches. They are usually called in by the agency in charge. They do not self deploy on searches or rescues.
Third, most SAR teams are protected by the states laws if something goes wrong but, for that state protection to take effect they must be called into action by the state/local agency in charge. That is why they don’t self deploy or deploy because Jim-Bob at the 7-11 called and says he thinks someone is lost because he saw mysterious writings in the snow. They would have no legal protection with the states assistance if they did.
Fourth, when you stomp SOS in the snow. It helps if you actually stay with the sign you made instead of continuing to tromp around aimlessly so it’s harder to be found. And seeing a SOS with someone waving at an aerial unit would be considered a much higher priority than just some stampings in the snow which might be considered a hoax.
Did you actually read some of the statements made by the husband or thier friends? “Cold wasn’t a problem for them”. Yet, his wife probably died from hypothermia. Sounds like he should have considered that the cold could have been a problem and prepared for that pursuing the “sport” he pursued. He should have skied in bounds. He should have stayed put when he created aerial emergency signals. This also sounds like this was a common practice for him and his wife. As a rule when people get away with something that is unsafe to do. They compound their mistake by believing that they got away with it once or twice or more so it must be safe to do. This continues until the odds catch up with them.
I don’t know what possible incorrect actions were done by RCMP, if any, but SAR sounds like they had little to no responsibility in this and should be removed from the lawsuit immediately by the judge if the lawsuit is allowed to proceed. Organizations should and probably will make drastic changes in how and when they deploy or disband entirely if the SAR teams need to defend themselves without state protection or if frivolous lawsuits allow them to be included. In the US I would expect that if the team was called in appropriately, then the state would defend them. If the SAR team was not activated appropriately and they didn’t respond then again, they should be removed from the lawsuit. If the SAR team self deployed or deployed when the agency in charge didn’t request them then there might be some reason to believe that they may have to defend themselves in a lawsuit. The only other question is if the SAR team did something while they were lawfully deployed that was clearly with total disregard for safety or was with willful negligence, which clearly doesn’t seem to be the case. This is all based on US law. I don’t think the Canadians do things too much differently but we will see. To my knowledge, almost every case brought against a SAR agency in the US has been tossed out before trial. There was one if memory serves that did make it to trial in California.
He was negligent. Not only for what he did to get himself into the situation but also in the manner he proceeded after he was lost. Which include the facts that he wasn’t prepared with either appropriate knowledge or equipment for what could have easily been foreseen by any reasonable person as a possible outcome from his own actions. He wasn’t just negligent, what he did probably rises to level of being criminally negligent and what he did and the actions he took is what got his wife killed. If that sounds harsh I make no apologies. Especially if someone else looks at it and decides to not be like him. That in my opinion would be a good thing.
And the standard disclaimers apply. I am no expert in law but we go through stuff like this yearly to make sure we understand when we have a duty to act and when we don’t in EMS/FIRE/RESCUE.
Keith