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Rescue Me |
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by Ray Purcell |
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While I was standing in the shower trying to wash out the grit that had been blown into my scalp from the prop wash of the rescue helicopter, I was considering the current debate over who pays for rescues; in other words, who's responsible.� Like most hairy controversies the issues at hand are complicated by the assumptions and expectations of the involved parties, i.e. climbers, society, land use managers (in this case), and third party payers. |
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| What led up to these deep thoughts was a conversation that I had overheard among a group of climbers shortly after the dust had literally settled from the evacuation of an injured climber at Williamson Rocks, in the Angeles National Forest of Southern California.� After the usual comparing of notes as to whether the leader fall had resulted in an ankle sprain or a compound fracture, there were some critical comments about the "40-minute" response time of the search and rescue team. |
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| From my perspective, on the other hand, an injury had occurred to a rock climber and someone made the decision to involve outside help; for the sake of argument the circumstances and extent of the injury are unimportant.� In counterpoint to the group that I was eavesdropping on I feel that it's unreasonable and irresponsible to expect outside help at all, and that climbers should make every effort to extract their own to the extent possible.� So, clearly among this sampling of climbers there are widely disparate assumptions and expectations of being rescued; but of whom have climbers made these assumptions- society of course, us, all of us, bowlers, golfers, assembly line workers, Assembly of God parishioners, the majority of John Q. Americans who perceive climbers as risk takers. |
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| The rising tide of risk taking is in the news; the personality trait for risk taking has even been located on the human chromosome.� The subject of risk taking has been written on from Time Magazine to Smithsonian, and when the pundits expound on the subject of risk, rock climbing is one of the emblematic activities.� It's because we stand out in the crowd and are easily identifiable that society at large and those who indemnify our sport don't want to pay the bills when we want our fat pulled out of the fire.� After all, societal assumptions and expectations in this case are all about perceptions, and those perceptions are unfortunately derived from Mountain Dew commercials, SUV ads, and movies like Vertical Limit.� |
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| Of course no one isolates smokers, the sedentary, or the morbidly obese when it comes time to recon the huge costs incurred by society for their lifestyle choices, but that's the nature of discrimination- nuff said.� My position, that climbers be more self reliant, has more to do with my assumption that by participating in the activity of climbing we hold our selves out as being more self sufficient than the general population, and my expectation is that we should live up to that.� I don't argue for a second that we as climbers aren't entitled to the same emergency services as someone who chokes on their steak at the Ahwahnee Hotel Dinning room, but we do need to exercise discrimination.� My point isn't, should we expect rescue without discriminatory costs, we should; my point is, should we seek rescue at all, and when is it justifiable. |
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| I'm reluctant to become to calamity and misfortune what Royal Robbins became to climbing style.� But, I do believe that even if you can pull down V11 at the Buttermilks, or free The Nose in a day, your not truly prepared to climb if you can't perform first-aid and use a Stokes Litter, or a creative alternative, to take out your injured.� It's not just about expecting self-sufficiency among our peers, it's also about not drawing rescuers into harms way. |
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| Williamson Rocks is located on Highway 2 and is about an hour from La Canada.� Because of its easy access it attracts a large volume of climbers, and they are of varied abilities and experience since the climbs range from five-easy to five-hard.� The crag is located in a narrow canyon at about 7000-feet.� At the time of this injury Search and Rescue arrived both by ground ambulance and air.� Two heavy laden Paramedics ran full bore down the loose and exposed trail to the bottom of the canyon and then had to run back up the other side on the crag it's self to get to the victim.� The helicopter with its crew of four couldn't land and had to lower a paramedic on a cable as it hovered among rocky pillars and treetops to extract the injured.� One miscalculation by the pilot during this very technical rescue and it would have been a much worse repeat of the Mt. Hood tragedy with a helicopter crashing onto climbers and rescuers in the confined rocky terrain- this time it didn't. |
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| In an increasingly sterile, dependent, and apathetic world I assumed that climbers climbed to escape the ambiguity, to step up to the line and seek true accountability.� In Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey described it this way: |
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"A adventuresome minority will always be eager to set off on their own, and no obstacles should be placed in their path; for Godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches- that is the right and privilege of any free American." |
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| I'm afraid that if we don't more rediscover these ideals then, like coffee cups that caution us that the contents are hot, we can expect guide books to include expected emergency response times among the other beta. |
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| August, 2002 |
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