Reply #72: Having been the rescuer on more than one occasion...

[lapfog_1]

I never said they shouldn't be rescued. If I was a technical climber and living near Mt. Hood, I would be there now looking for them. All I said was that they should have known better (being expert climbers), and that the situation is likely partly their fault (they were stupid to not take the proper equipment).

yes, shit happens.

Absolutely even the best trained can get into trouble. In fact, it's sometimes the very best trained that get into trouble simply because they do it so much that it's easy to make a mistake, become a little over confident.

I don't understand your comment about #3...

Having been trained as a rescue diver, I can assure you that I would never ever berate any rescue people (I've had some experience with those who having just been yanked out of a situation that could kill them, start yelling at me for having interrupted their dive).

Maybe because I was a dive instructor and have had experience with rescuing people who shouldn't have been certified, I have a certain amount of callous attitude about people doing stupid things and getting into trouble. I think that much like ER docs, you have to adopt that attitude or risk terminal depression.

That one of the climbers has died should become an object lesson for all climbers, else his death will have been in vain. Same is/was true of every scuba diver who died while having some fun in nature.

We must learn from the mistakes of others.