SPOT the problem
July 31st, 2008 | 
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So what do you think about this. . . Someone has the new SPOT personal locater and they tell their family that they will check in every at such and such a time. Well, for whatever reason they don’t and the coast guard is called. Well, later they are found and are just fine. There are all sorts of reasons they may not check in. Of course, not checking in is NOT the same as hitting the emergency button. Apparently these situations are starting to pop up. Anyway, this discussion has been going on over at Paddlewise and there are some good points being made. The problem it seems to me, is that if you don’t check in, it would be remiss of your family not to call for help. On the other hand it opens the door for lots of false calls. Any thoughts?
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as a guy who has had the coast guard called out for him a couple times for this very reason, i’d say please don’t charge me and please keep coming to look for me, that one time, I will need all of their help!!!
yeah, I think that troubles lots of people, just the fact that it costs so much. On the other hand who wants to be the one to say, “don’t bother having a look.” for the sake of budget?
budget is not the issue here, putting the lives of SAR and CG personnel at risk by firing off needless distress phone calls for people who have not signalled they are in distress is irresponsible at best.
SPOT has a severe problem on their hands with people showing a lack of basic judgement about situations calling in the cavalry when none is needed.
I’m not sure we can over-simplify it by assuming everyone is stupid. They are not. What they are are friends and families who care about someone. They are not going to NOT call if they think it’s nessisary. They will always err on the side of caution. You can’t dis them for that.
However, there does probably need to be some communication about what the “ok” should mean. Adventures should not imply that a lack of checking in is a problem. There are all sorts of issues and distractions that can cause you not to “check in”. Together everyone has to agree that in a real emergency only the adventurer will call in the calvary.
Basically we just have another way to communicate and we’ll have to work out some ground rules but I’m not sure it’s SPOTs problem. I can think of plenty of silly situations where SAR has been called in just because someone had a dead battery or miscommunicated when they would check in. (long before SPOT) It’s nothing new, just a new, in-expensive way for mis-communications to occur. I think it sort itself out as people see what can happen. SPOT would certainly be wise if they would suggest some communication ground rules to their customers.
The way to address this issue is to have a well-established protocol in place as part of your float plan so that those following one’s SPOT know not to call for help just because the SPOT stops transmitting.
Such a protocol recognizes the fact that there are many reasons for an interruption in transmission–mechanical failure, batteries run down, operator forgets to press OK button, inability of operator to have clear view of sky (e.g., waiting out thunderstorm in a cave).
One’s “support team” might view lack of transmission with concern, but hopefully other parts of the float plan then kick in. For example, if someone stops transmitting a day away from a town from which they had planned to call the team and two days go by without a call, then that likely would be enough to at least alert the authorities.
Finally, I think folks wrongly view the only options as (a) do nothing at the risk of having someone’s loss of life on your conscience or (b) calling in the rescue squad cavalry. From limited experience I think there is a third way, namely, calling up the emergency response personnel and sharing your concerns that there has been a sudden lose of SPOT transmissions. This might prompt them to keep an eye out for the person/people in the field. They also likely will be willing to work with the support team in deciding when to initiate more intensive rescue efforts (e.g., in example above, when person in field fails to make phone call from nearby town).
In sum, effective use of SPOT requires close attention to one’s float plan and support team. That extra attention is an inherently good thing and is in my opinion one of the reasons people should give serious consideration to the SPOT device.
TJB – Well put. Knowing how much time it takes to type out a clear and detailed comment I really appreciate it. Oh, and I agree with your assessment by the way. There has to be some clear agreements on who does what when.
I would love to contribute to this conversation, unfortunately I have no idea where to find the story – the “URL” is not very helpful as it points to the root of the website.
Derrick, would you be so kind as to use a bit more precise link next time?
Sorry Marius,
Paddlewise is a listserve, so you have to be on the list to get the emails. (You can sign up on the website) That’s why I gave an overview for the sake of the blog.