EagleI Posted January 27, 2004 Share Posted January 27, 2004 Here's an article about 14 fishermen and snowmobilers being rescued from an ice floe in Lake Erie: article "The Coast Guard was able to more easily find the men because they had a global positioning system receiver, which allowed rescuers to track a satellite signal to their location." What kind of GPSr would that be? And do you think that the Coast Guard will be sending them a bill? Quote Link to comment
+Renegade Knight Posted January 27, 2004 Share Posted January 27, 2004 The was an article on rescueing a mans horse via helicopter by the national guard. They chalked it up to training and said, "next time it might be a person and we will be better prepaired". Sometimes I wonder about the cost of doing business. It's not like the Coast Guard keeps their boats mothballed and the men freeze dried until a moment of need. They are trained on an ongoing basis, and they patrol whether or not there are people to rescue. The cost above and beyond normal operations is probably low enough to where you would spend more money figuring out the cost than what the costs were. Quote Link to comment
+LowAndSlow Posted January 27, 2004 Share Posted January 27, 2004 (edited) I don't think the GPSr sent their location to the Coast Guard, it looks like the men told their rescuers their location when they called for help with the cell phone. Most GPSr do not send any information to anyone, they simply receives signals from the satellites. Now a PLB (personal locator beacon) would send your location to rescuers when activated, but the article does not mention anything about a PLB being used. This is part of daily business for the coast guard. Unless there is a special circumstance the party should not get a bill, just like your fire department doesn't bill you for putting out a house fire. Having said that, I used to live in a rural area where I didn't pay taxes to a fire district. If we had a fire, we would get a bill for it. I work for a branch of the Air Force that does search and rescue for downed civilian pilots. Our expenses are paid by the Air Force, not by the person rescued. Or in some cases we might be contracted by local law enforcement for a missing person search or by FEMA for disaster relief, etc. In those cases the expenses are paid by the requesting agency. Edited January 27, 2004 by LowAndSlow Quote Link to comment
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