The hiker from Kansas did almost everything right: He didn’t go alone, carried water and a member of his group even had a GPS unit.
But he made one mistake. He chose to hike in a part of Jefferson County that one sheriff’s office spokesman called “no man’s land” – that is to say, it’s unincorporated and unserved by a fire department.
That decision appears destined to cost David Seals about $5,000. That’s the amount of the bill Golden Fire Department plans to send the 34-year-old from Topeka for evacuating him last week from Clear Creek Canyon after he severely twisted his ankle.
Golden is setting a dangerous precedent that will discourage people from calling for help or refusing it once rescuers arrived. City officials should reconsider their policy.
The situation unfolded this way, said Jim Shires, a Jefferson County Sheriff’s spokesman: The sheriff’s office got the call, but has no rescue team. The county has an agreement with Golden Fire, so that in an emergency Golden will cover the area where Seals was hurt.
Thus, it was up to Golden to determine how best to carry out the mission, Shires said. Golden took on the rescue with help from the West Metro Fire and Alpine Rescue Team, an all-volunteer group.
Department officials say their employees spent hours under difficult conditions using expensive equipment. They say they can’t justify to their taxpayers doing such costly work outside their district boundaries without reimbursement.
“That’s the policy, to charge those who are rescued,” said Sabrina D’Agosta, Golden communications manager. In this instance, Golden’s charges are particularly egregious because Alpine Rescue, which is nationally accredited to handle the most dangerous rescues, was ready to bring Seals down at no charge. Originally, West Metro Fire planned to charge Seals $2,400, but backed off.
It’s easy to envision how rescue charges could encourage people to make a bad situation worse. Injured people might try to get out of predicaments by recruiting friends or delaying calls for help until conditions worsened so much that more lives would be at stake.
It’s time, we think, for departments such as Golden to revisit their out-of-district rescue charge policies. Since the county has overarching responsibility for such operations in unincorporated areas, it ought to come to some agreement with its partners over costs.
One thing’s for sure: Public policy that could discourage people from seeking help is a dangerous path that serves no one.
