Sunday June 21, 2009
Go out of bounds at your own risk
By Jim Taylor
If you go out in the woods today, you\’re in for a big surprise. Should you get into difficulties, there may be no one available to bail you out.
Across the province, search and rescue teams are reconsidering their services, and their liabilities.
The cause of this withdrawal of services is a law suit that hasn\’t even made it to court yet. Last February, Gilles Blackburn of Montreal and his wife Marie-Josee Fortin went skiing at the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort just west of Golden. In media interviews, Blackburn admitted that they didn\’t tell anyone they were going to venture out of bounds.
When they couldn\’t find their way back to the resort, the couple stamped out an SOS in the snow.
A local helicopter pilot reported the SOS to the resort, who called the local search and rescue. In B.C., volunteer search-and-rescue crews do not have authority to start their missions. The order can only come from a provincial authority, like the RCMP. With no reports of overdue skiers and apparently no evidence of anyone missing, the report was not followed up with a ground search.
Later, other pilots also saw SOS signs in the snow. They reported their findings to the RCMP. They were told that the SOS had already been checked out. Again, no search was launched.
After all, if no one\’s missing, it would reasonable to assume that the message might a hoax, a prank by high-spirited young people — like those “Grad” signs sprayed on inaccessible cliffs and bridge girders every spring.
On the ninth day, a passing helicopter pilot saw Blackburn frantically waving and picked him up. By then, Fortin had died; Blackburn had serious frostbite that later cost him parts of his feet.
Launches lawsuit
Now Blackburn and his two sons are suing the Golden Search and Rescue Society, the RCMP, and the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort for damages.
B.C. is one of seven Canadian provinces with a “Good Samaritan” law. Essentially, these laws say that you cannot be held liable if you make a mistake while voluntarily assisting a person in need, except for gross negligence. B.C. adds two additional exceptions: if you\’re acting as part of your profession, or if you hope to gain from your actions.
Here\’s the catch – the law protects individual volunteers. But not their societies. If the court rules against Golden Search & Rescue – or any similar non-profit society — the directors of the society are liable for damages.
Only a third of B.C.\’s 120 or so search and rescue societies have liability insurance for their directors. B.C. provides third-party liability insurance for volunteers, but not for their societies.
As news of Blackburn\’s lawsuit spread, Fernie\’s directors resigned immediately to protect themselves. Golden suspended all activities – for them, it\’s too late to resign. Vernon, the province\’s second-busiest Search and Rescue operation, demanded resolution in 60 days, or they too would quit.
Quite naturally, volunteers wonder why they should risk their lives rescuing a few people who knowingly go out of bounds, if doing so could cost them their homes, their savings, or their businesses.
Volunteer services too valuable
I can sympathize with Blackburn\’s loss. It must have been devastating to watch his wife dying by degrees – literally. It must be soul-destroying to remember that their decision to venture off the marked trails led to her death.
But I cannot sympathize with Blackburn\’s law suit. Because going out of bounds was a deliberate choice that he and Fortin made. He cannot assuage his remorse by trying to transfer blame to the resort, the RCMP, or Golden Search & Rescue.
When Michel Trudeau was swept by an avalanche into a lake in Kokanee Glacier Park and drowned, in 1998, should Pierre Trudeau have sued the provincial parks department for negligence?
When officers hunted down the Mad Trapper of Rat River, Albert Johnson, in 1932, should Johnson\’s relatives have been able to sue the RCMP for doing their duty?
When Sir John Franklin\’s expedition perished trying to find the legendary North West Passage, in the winter of 1845, should the crew\’s widows have been able to file a class action suit against the British government for failing to rescue their husbands?
Actions have consequences
The simple fact is this – those who venture into uncharted territory, those who deliberately go out of bounds, go at their own risk.
Artists recognize this reality. When they choose to color outside the lines, to play between the scales, to write beyond the box, they take a risk. They cannot count on governments or wealthy patrons to bail them out.
Unfortunately, a lot of others don\’t get the picture yet. Bankers, investment dealers, car companies, pulp mills, technology firms – all seem to feel entitled to being rescued, no matter how much their own previous actions may have contributed to their losses.
Actions have consequences. Those who venture out of bounds do so at their own risk.
When Blackburn\’s case comes to court, I hope the court will rule it out of bounds.
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Copyright © 2009 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
Please tell your friends about these columns. To send comments, to subscribe or to unsubscribe, or to request permission to reprint, write [email protected] Be sure to include Soft Edges or Sharp Edges in the subject line, so my spam filter doesn\’t delete your message.
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Your Turn
Ralph Milton told me that last week\’s column, on the ability of individuals to affect the destiny of much larger bodies, was a “great column.” Ralph and I don\’t often lavish praise on each other, so I treasure that comment.
Susan Roe Finlay of Kelowna responded: “I note that you include Gandhi in your saints. I just finished a book comparing Gandhi and Churchill. Both were single minded and narrow minded to a fault. Gandhi\’s immediate legacy was terrible civil war and it continues to this day. Churchill was only saved from the insignificant back benches by a brutal war. Having grown up with admiration for each of them, I am now re-thinking my values.”
I didn\’t actually call Gandhi a saint. I said that our society “tends to invest [certain] persons with saintly qualities” which is not quite the same thing as being a saint. But aside from that quibble, Susan is right. Most of our so-called “saints” have had some very earthy qualities.
And while I\’m defending myself… Suzanne Edgar, from somewhere in Saskatchewan, wrote, “Whoa, Jim, you must be having a bad day. To suggest that someone, no matter how obese and anti-social…deserves to murdered is way out of line. Personally, I have always considered it a good thing that Christian readings and prayers were taken out of the schools, to be hopefully replaced by readings and prayers from all faiths so that children understand the educational system supports, and doesn\’t ignore, the care and respect of their soul. I have as a child been subjected to teachers who scared the living daylights out of me with their Bible readings and commentary. One Grade 7 boy put the Bible in the garbage can one day, in protest, and we all witnessed a teacher in melt-down as she noticed it and fished it out. Even at that young age, I understood two things: God was not angry at that boy, and encourages us to stand up to tyranny, especially tyranny in the name of God!”
Umm, well, you see, I didn\’t actually say that I thought that the murder of Madalyn Murray O\’Hair was justified divine retribution. I said that it “might suggest divine retribution.” But what I really meant to say was that at the time, some people called it divine retribution. I remember that, but I couldn\’t find an authoritative source, so I fudged and failed to be clear.
Just in case I\’m still not clear, I do not believe in a God who would take revenge that way. (Now I\’m probably in deeper trouble.)
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About My Paraphrases
Occasionally, I get frustrated by the Bible. Not usually by the message, which is timeless, but by the language and metaphor. Contemporary translations update the language, but not the metaphor, so the text still expects us to respond to images of deserts and tents, camels and droughts, kings and concubines. What we\’ve learned since the Bible was written — about psychology and evolution, about quantum physics and astronomy, computers and fossil fuels – is simply left out.
At such times, I start paraphrasing. I don\’t pretend that these paraphrases rely on new translations of original texts. They are, rather, my way of writing what I think the original writers might have said IF they lived today. Sometimes I stick close to the traditional versification; sometimes I take liberties.
My paraphrase of Paul\’s letter to the Romans attempts to put Paul\’s sometimes convoluted words — and argument — into a contemporary setting. If Paul were writing today, to the Christian church, I\’m not sure he\’d worry as much about the failure of the Jews to follow Christ as about the failure of Christians to follow Christ, so I have rephrased in those terms. I suspect he would also make use of quotations from the Gospels — which of course didn\’t exist when he wrote his letters — rather than using quotations from the only scriptures he had available, which we call the Old Testament.
About 200 people have requested the paraphrase of Romans, as an electronic file.
I now have two new paraphrases available, for Ecclesiastes and Job. Ecclesiastes sticks pretty much to the biblical flow of verses – though with, I hope, some sense of humour. Job cuts 42 chapters down to about three pages. I found the speeches in Job interminable; the only way I could make sense of the various characters\’ verbal meanderings was to turn them into television sound-bites.
I\’m making these available the same way as Romans – on the honor system. You send me an e-mail and request the file you want. I\’ll send it. If you like it, and want to keep it, you send me a cheque for $5 by snail mail. If you don\’t like it, simply erase it from your hard disk and send nothing.
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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For other web links worth pursuing, try
- Charlene Fairchild\’s United Online site,
- David Keating\’s “SeemslikeGod” page
- The Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity home page
- Dan Strizek\’s Gathering Place for Creation Spirituality
- Alva Wood\’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not terribly religious, but they are fun; write [email protected] to get onto her mailing list.
- Jim Henderschedt\’s occasional e-zine, Fresh Water, subscribe by writing him, [email protected]
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