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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/10/FAMILY.TMP

This article will drive you nuts...just amazing...how this could have been handled better. I don't like the idea of slamming SAR but man some of this stuff just seems pathetic.

God Bless you Surfer. I don't know how you do it but you consistently find great relevant links...

I was just going to post the sfgate story this morning when I saw your post.

It deserves to be a separate post all on its own because of all of the new information.

Could you do that?

It is amazing that when I have just about decided that this thread has run out of gas, you come up with something like that.

Before I get to the most important point, an observation about the credit card info.

There is really good reason for that under normal circumstances. People will get info on hotel guests and either knock over their home while they are gone or otherwise rip them off.

But I am sure that anyone above a desk clerk would have the authority and the judgment to break the rules in an emergency search and rescue situation. So I expect this was a low level employee afraid to do something he/she was told not to do.

So someone should have gone to the top person.

But that brings up another question. I have always understood that in a life threatening situation, a peace officer can commandeer a car, boat, whatever that is required to save a life or apprehend a dangerous person. That may not be correct and apprehending a computer that you can't figure out how to work (passwords, etc.) may not have been cost effective as relates to time.

And since we don't even know that the information would have helped, we can't say any more about that other than I would fire the person who refused the information under those circumstances.

But the part of this story that really hurts is the part about the guy that saw the car tracks and followed them until his snowmobile hit dry land.

He has to have some sleepless nights for the rest of his life.

Maybe he has a physical condition that does not allow it, but I would have gone back to the house and rounded up something that would go the rest of the way and I would have found out what was at the end of the tracks.

If not able to do that myself, I would have planted myself at the entrance to that road, that is, where it turned off of the main road, and raised a fuss until someone did go in.

Too many times people pick up the phone and make a call and then they are done. Most of the time that works but many times it does not because of the huge number of people, the various layers of command, shift changes and other things that cause information to be lost.

The "I thought you took care of that" causes a lot of mistakes, as well.

So my suggestion is that we should promise ourselves that should we ever be involved in anything like this and we see something that has such great significance that we do more than just make a phone call. If nothing happens after the first call, call again. If nothing happens, call another one of the agencies involved. If nothing happens after you call three times, call the TV station.
We all have "I should have's" on our conscience. I would hate to have this one.
That story is to me the saddest of them all.

Amazing! Thanks for posting that. How sad that it took so long for the pieces of the puzzle to come together to point to the are they were in.