Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed over Mt Hood Fatality

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BurnsideBob
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Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed over Mt Hood Fatality

Post by BurnsideBob » May 15th, 2018, 7:15 am

Climber John Jenkins died in a climbing accident on Mt Hood May 2017. The Washington Post is reporting today that his family filed a wrongful death lawsuit Monday, May 14, alleging negligence thru failure to promptly arrange medical transport via helicopter.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... 5f15bae69e
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Re: Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed over Mt Hood Fatality

Post by Aimless » May 15th, 2018, 10:29 am

That's unfortunate. The news stories do not provide anywhere near the depth of detail that would be provided in a lawsuit, but based solely on the sketchy details mentioned, the helicopter arrived within two hours, which seems pretty timely to me, considering the amount of logistics necessary for a mountain rescue. A good personal injury lawyer will be able to highlight the terrible trauma inflicted on everyone by the entire event, and might convince a jury to award significant damages, but no system works optimally all the time and defining anything sub-optimal as "negligence" would be a mistake.

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Re: Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed over Mt Hood Fatality

Post by squidvicious » May 15th, 2018, 10:39 am

Aimless wrote:
May 15th, 2018, 10:29 am
based solely on the sketchy details mentioned, the helicopter arrived within two hours, which seems pretty timely to me, considering the amount of logistics necessary for a mountain rescue.
It's says in the article that the helicopter arrived after 4 1/2 hours. After multiple phone calls from multiple people, being passed around to multiple agencies and being given bad information. It was more than two hours from the first call before one of those agencies even requested a helicopter.

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Re: Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed over Mt Hood Fatality

Post by Aimless » May 15th, 2018, 11:13 am

You are right. Thank you for the correction.

Ideally, the family will be seeking a settlement that concentrates on the agencies involved fixing whatever inadequacies were revealed by this death, rather than concentrating on extracting a large cash award.

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Re: Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed over Mt Hood Fatality

Post by Guy » May 15th, 2018, 11:39 am

Very upsetting & I feel sorry for the family but on the face of it I don't support this lawsuit at all.

Regardless of the 4.5 hour wait time for a helicopter I don't think people can expect the same level of emergency response or even a guarantee of response when climbing a mountain as you should expect from a car accident or if your house catches fire. Especially when you consider most rescue teams are volunteers too.

These kinds of lawsuits will just bring more and more restrictions to the community of climbing that this person was obviously as part of.
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Re: Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed over Mt Hood Fatality

Post by BigBear » May 15th, 2018, 12:05 pm

It is unfortunate that this person's summit attempt ended tragically.

The details of the response are sketchy in the media coverage. However, I am concerned over lawsuits in the wilderness.

In this situation, if the family is seeking a specific response time, that may mean that the forest will be closed to all activities that take a person further from the parking lot than the standard they are seeking. I would hate to think that my hiking and climbing activities will be limited to how fast rescue can get to me if I do something that gets me into trouble. I always enter the forest with the believe it is my responsibility to get myself out, not someone else.

A couple of years ago, a family sued USFS because a man wanted to photograph a flash-flood while standing on the Ramona Falls Trail bridge over the Muddy Fork. The high water washed the bridge away, drowning him. The family sued USFS because they did not remove the bridge. They believed the negligence was not with the person standing on the bridge, but with those who put it there. The result: no bridge for anyone, so you have to cross on logs or wade across. What an obtuse decision by all of those involved.

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Re: Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed over Mt Hood Fatality

Post by kepPNW » May 15th, 2018, 12:12 pm

BigBear wrote:
May 15th, 2018, 12:05 pm
I would hate to think that my hiking and climbing activities will be limited to how fast rescue can get to me if I do something that gets me into trouble.
Well... As it happens... That's one of the most pointed-to answers as to why the crater trail into MSH, one initially touted as available to all, is now only available to those who pay MSHI for the privilege of enjoying these public lands. The emergency response folks just took one look, and said "no effin' way!"
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Re: Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed over Mt Hood Fatality

Post by squidvicious » May 15th, 2018, 12:37 pm

Aimless wrote:
May 15th, 2018, 11:13 am
Ideally, the family will be seeking a settlement that concentrates on the agencies involved fixing whatever inadequacies were revealed by this death, rather than concentrating on extracting a large cash award.
Yeah. I wish they weren't suing for financial damages but for specific changes to the training and procedures that would make sure in the next incident the right info gets to the right people and families aren't left to wonder "what if." Extracting a cash award ultimately probably only makes the agency worse, not better. It puts them in a defensive position of denying problems, rather than allowing them to take an honest look at the mistakes that were made and the lessons that could be learned from them.

The WP article links to one or more in the Oregonian with some additional info, including one bit that more or less says, Yeah, we probably dropped the ball in communication, but due to other factors even an ideal response couldn't have played out any/much quicker in this particular case. OK, let's say that's true for this particular case... but now that you've seen the points where the ball is getting dropped, what are you doing about it? Because there's always going to be another case.

Obviously I agree that when you decide to climb a mountain you assume certain risks. If you fall and weather conditions or hazards of your location mean a rescue helicopter can't get to you, that's the risk you take. But if you fall and someone's able to call rescue, but a helicopter is never called because the person just heard the word "timberline," made assumptions, and wrongly passed you off to the ski patrol ('"So, I'm at 10,500 feet," Cornett said, "... Googling Timberline Ski Patrol to find their number."'); things got bounced around to so many people that they lost track of who'd been told what and who had or hadn't been contracted; and there's not one clear person/agency coordinating and following up, that's just bad emergency management.

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Re: Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed over Mt Hood Fatality

Post by VanMarmot » May 15th, 2018, 3:26 pm

Guy wrote:
May 15th, 2018, 11:39 am
Very upsetting & I feel sorry for the family but on the face of it I don't support this lawsuit at all.

Regardless of the 4.5 hour wait time for a helicopter I don't think people can expect the same level of emergency response or even a guarantee of response when climbing a mountain as you should expect from a car accident or if your house catches fire. Especially when you consider most rescue teams are volunteers too.

These kinds of lawsuits will just bring more and more restrictions to the community of climbing that this person was obviously as part of.
I agree with these three points.

I too would like to see the energy go into fixing the problems this tragedy uncovered rather than into lawyers and litigation.

Climbing mountains is risky business...period. I think climbers, particularly experienced ones, know and accept this. I also know, from bitter personal experience, that climbers' families/survivors are not always so accepting. Why, how, and under what circumstances a person goes climbing is not necessarily understood and accepted by those close to them. So if a climb goes bad, a loss can lead to confusion, anger, and blaming. While I'm not endorsing a lawsuit, I can understand why those left behind might believe it's the best way to assuage these feelings.

When Nepal placed severe restrictions on Everest climbers, I posted herein something to the effect that if restrictions were to happen here, Mount Hood's south side would be the place to start. Maybe this lawsuit won't be the proverbial straw, but I can see it as a possible excuse for the USFS's long-held desire to curb the masses ascending Hood.

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Re: Wrongful Death Lawsuit Filed over Mt Hood Fatality

Post by Bosterson » May 16th, 2018, 11:55 am

VanMarmot wrote:
May 15th, 2018, 3:26 pm
Why, how, and under what circumstances a person goes climbing is not necessarily understood and accepted by those close to them. So if a climb goes bad, a loss can lead to confusion, anger, and blaming. While I'm not endorsing a lawsuit, I can understand why those left behind might believe it's the best way to assuage these feelings.

When Nepal placed severe restrictions on Everest climbers, I posted herein something to the effect that if restrictions were to happen here, Mount Hood's south side would be the place to start. Maybe this lawsuit won't be the proverbial straw, but I can see it as a possible excuse for the USFS's long-held desire to curb the masses ascending Hood.
I haven't gone looking for the original report, and perhaps no on knew why he fell. Every year someone dies on Hood, and I can't say any of the ones I can think of are specifically due to overcrowding, or even (a la the new Alps regulations) something like missing safety equipment. (I guess there was the guy last year who didn't have his ice axe out, but he did have one with him - further proof against the Alps rules that requiring someone to have equipment doesn't mean they can/will use it.) But who knows - look at the nuclear option the USFS is proposing for Central Oregon due to overcrowding. I'm sure if they get hit with a legal judgment, they will spin it into restrictions if they can.

That said, this lawsuit is not against the USFS but rather Clackamas County and sheriffs dept. The issue is whether municipal 911 services screwed up the rescue call and getting the helicopter sent out. Without necessarily advocating for a lawsuit, it's possible this happened. I'm all for tort reform, and kind of think that once you go climbing on a mountain, anyone who tries to rescue you (ineptly or not, professionally or not) should be covered as a good Samaritan; however, consider this analogue:

A) Someone falls on Hood, 911 is called, the 911 operator screws up transferring the call to the proper emergency response team, and so the response is delayed and the climber dies.

B) Someone is hit by a car crossing the street, 911 is called, the 911 operator screws up transferring the call to the proper emergency response team, and so the response is delayed and the person dies.

Certainly it's hard to know if the screwup would have made the difference - it is near impossible to predict the counterfactual, someone surviving when in reality they didn't. Potentially the court will rule that the guy died from a climbing fall, and as the 911 operator did not "cause" his death, there is no liability. However, it's interesting to consider whether A) and B) are different (and if so, why) from a legal perspective.

Of course, the real issue is that Mt. Hood is a mountain on top of a ski resort, the south side is packed with people who have just walked off a ski run, and presumably that sets up an expectation of rescue. Look at the usage of all the other routes on the mountain - they're effectively empty. Maybe the USFS will ban all climbing from Timberline (how would they enforce that??), though potentially that would just drive the less experienced into terrain that would more surely kill them... And the internet does not need any additional help accomplishing this.
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