OPINION: Non-emergency Alaska 'rescues' a drain on finite resources

Recent reports indicate that calling for a wilderness rescue is becoming more frequent among unlucky or unprepared Alaska backcountry travelers who end up in unpleasant, but not deadly, situations.

Technology now allows people to call for evacuation from circumstances that, while perhaps traumatic or unsettling, are not immediately life-threatening.

Such calls for rescues are becoming practically routine in recent years, and it’s not just Cheechakos calling for help.

People just don't seem to recognize that calling for rescue in a situation that isn’t immediately life-threatening puts search and rescue crews in a serious dilemma. They must answer every call for help -- no matter what the nature of the emergency -- and by personal dedication and state policy, they must respond, even if it means risking their own lives.

Such "rescues" constitute a growing and unnecessary drain on state resources and law enforcement personnel.

A simple solution might be to pass a state law similar to the policy that now applies to the U.S. Coast Guard’s rescue response, the “Maritime SAR Assistance Policy.”

It stipulates, in many parts of the country, that unless people are in immediate, life-threatening danger, the Coast Guard will refer the call for help to a private, for-profit company, which then charges for the “rescue.”

Some conscientious people in Alaska are already taking it upon themselves to call private companies instead of the Alaska State Troopers for non-emergency wilderness evacuations.

But panic overrides civic duty for too many others.

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