*** Failed SAR Incidents & Legal Responsibility ***

To:         Search & Rescue Info <SARINFO@mindlink.bc.ca>
Date sent:  Thu, 14 Mar 96 14:36:04 -0800
From: <BChan@vines.gems.gov.bc.ca>
Subject: Legal Responsibility

I am curious about what everyone thinks in relation to legal responsibility
of the SAR team when a mistake or error is made during a search. I can
think of two recent examples that I would like comments on.

A local search and rescue team was called to assist in searching for a
elderly lady with Alzheimer's who walked away from her house in a small
town in the early evening. This happened in December and it gets dark here
around 4-5pm. A search of the immediate area around her house was done,
but a full blown search was not initiated until the following morning even
though temperatures were in the -5 C range. The search management team
concluded that SOP was to search downhill of LKP and searched in a 2 km
radius from that point. The subject was not found and the search was
called off after a day and night. The subject was found two months later
by a local farmer uphill from the LKP within 2 km. She had fallen into a
small ravine that could only be seen if you were almost right on top of it.
Is this an error by the search management team, should they be responsible,
or just an unfortunate event?

A second and possibly more graphic case relates to a young man who was out
picking mushrooms (the legal variety) with a group of friends when he
became separated.  He was wearing a T-shirt, jeans and running shoes.  A
search was begun and many of the subject's family members were involved.
The search continued for a couple days and the subject was not found even
though they had had voice contact early in the first evening of the search.

The family, who probably was more involved in the search than they should
have been, became unhappy with the process and were subsequently asked to
stay out of the way of the search management team by local law enforcement
authorities. The search was called off after a few days but the family
decided to continue the search in an area they had previously requested be
researched by the SAR teams. Within an hour of researching the area the
body of the subject was found by the subject's family members. The family
was extremely unhappy with the Search process, local law enforcement
agencies and others, and considered legal proceedings against those
involved.

Has anyone else been involved where subjects were not found, due to errors,
lack of training, bad luck or whatever where negligence charges were
considered by family members against the SAR teams?

I should say that I was not involved in either search and my information is
at best second or third hand.

Comments?
Brent
bchan@vines.gems.gov.bc.ca

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 14:09:44 PST
From: Hal Lillywhite <hall@mxim.com>
Subject: Re: Legal Responsibility

>I am curious about what everyone thinks in relation to legal responsibility
>of the SAR team when a mistake or error is made during a search. I can
>think of two recent examples that I would like comments on.

I see two aspects to this question, the legal and the ethical. In
Oregon volunteers have a great deal of legal protection, state law
protects us against honest mistakes. We can only loose a lawsuit
if we are guilty of gross negligence. I think this is a good law.
Otherwise who would dare volunteer his time etc. when he might loose
everything he had in a lawsuit over some alleged mistake? I see
this law as recognition that mistakes do happen and that sometimes a
decision made in good faith turns out to be wrong. Our hindsight is
much better than our foresight. Actually this law even protects
against some carelessness as long as it isn't "gross." We can get
tired, hungry, pressured etc. so carelessness is too often part of
the operation. Without this protection we might have to push
ourselves too hard and lower rescuer safety. However, I don't
believe this law applies to paid rescuers.

The ethical question is a different matter. If I am so tired that I
decide not to search the last bit of my area I may not get sued but
if the subject is later found there I will feel terrible, and I
should feel bad. I think we have an obligation to try to the best
of our ability to find and rescue the subject (as long as we
maintain rescuer saftey). However we need to realize that we can't
save everybody and once an operation is over it's over. No need to
flagellate ourselves about what went wrong (we can learn from it
though). This is another area where CIS measures are important.
Anyone who consistently wastes a lot of time worrying about what he
did wrong in some operations is likely to burn out quickly.  Help
from a de-briefer, counselor etc. might prolong this person's career
in SAR.

>A local search and rescue team was called to assist in searching for a
>elderly lady with Alzheimer's who walked away from her house in a small
>town in the early evening. This happened in December and it gets dark here
>around 4-5pm. A search of the immediate area around her house was done,
>but a full blown search was not initiated until the following morning even
>though temperatures were in the -5 C range. The search management team
>concluded that SOP was to search downhill of LKP and searched in a 2 km
>radius from that point. The subject was not found and the search was
>called off after a day and night. The subject was found two months later
>by a local farmer uphill from the LKP within 2 km. She had fallen into a
>small ravine that could only be seen if you were almost right on top of it.
> Is this an error by the search management team, should they be responsible,
> or just an unfortunate event?

Based on the information given (which is obviously incomplete) it
does appear to be an error by the search management. While POA may
be higher downhill, uphill is still fairly probable. I would also
wonder why the full-blown search was not started earlier considering
the conditions.

>A second and possibly more graphic case relates to a young man who was out
>picking mushrooms (the legal variety) with a group of friends when he
>became separated.  He was wearing a T-shirt, jeans and running shoes.  A
>search was begun and many of the subject's family members were involved.
>The search continued for a couple days and the subject was not found even
>though they had had voice contact early in the first evening of the search.
> The family, who probably was more involved in the search than they should
>have been, became unhappy with the process and were subsequently asked to
>stay out of the way of the search management team by local law enforcement
>authorities. The search was called off after a few days but the family
>decided to continue the search in an area they had previously requested be
>researched by the SAR teams. Within an hour of researching the area the
>body of the subject was found by the subject's family members. The family
>was extremely unhappy with the Search process, local law enforcement
>agencies and others, and considered legal proceedings against those
>involved.

This one is not so clear-cut. Actually the aspect I find most
troubling is no find after voice contact. Sound direction can be
tricky but by marking where it is and is not heard usually you can
zero in. I hope a complete debriefing and evaluation was held after
this incident. Surely the groups involved could have learned
something from it.

As for the area where he was eventually found, I hope the search
managers had firm ground for not re-searching the area. It is even
possible that he was not in that area during the search and wandered
in later. Obviously it makes the searchers look bad however.

>Has anyone else been involved where subjects were not found, due to errors,
>lack of training, bad luck or whatever where negligence charges were
>considered by family members against the SAR teams?

Well, I've been on some which took longer than necessary due to
errors but most of the "subject not found" I suspect were due to bad
luck. We had a famous search here in Oregon after which the family
tried to bring legal action. This was a 17 year old hunter (his
first day hunting no less) who dissappeared.  The search went on for
a couple of weeks followed by an unofficial search. It wasn't till
the following year that another hunter found what was left (not much
but enough teeth for ID). He was 10 miles outside the search area!
No way we could have reasonably searched all that territory. There
was some suspicion of foul play (remains of a meth lab were found in
the area) but no real evidence thereof. Of course we don't really
know what happened but the most probable course of events is that he
just "lost it" and took off. He was afraid of the dark and happened
to go the only direction where he would not have found a road in
that distance.

                --------------------------------