[Paddlewise] Gnus

"Litigation Paranoia News", the Journal for
Extra-Paranormal-Legal-Potential, has this week
reported that legal proceedings have been
commenced by a group of disgruntled rescue workers
against a class of defendants including owners of
sea kayaks with PFDs attached to their front decks
(but not worn), and all published advocates of
naked, gear-free sea canoeing.

The plaintiff's lawyer, Howard Willisby, said, 
"It's
all right for those conceited ego-strokers to go
paddling off to cold far-flung destinations, and
to come back bragging about how they escaped death
without using an epirb, but not so long back SAR
personnel had to pick up a frozen mummified corpse
in the Far North, located after the victim's
absence from certain email chat-rooms was noticed
a couple of years down the track. No reports of a
missing person were received from family members,
who were sworn never to report the paddler
missing, on pain of being cut off from inheritance
of his collection of cloned canoes, and original
manuscripts of published works, including the
renowned "Risk Homeopathy: A Manual for Paddling
Euthanasia".

"The rescue workers who attended to the body
recovery mission reported the body to be in
excellent condition, given the time that had
elapsed since death. "He must have been pretty dry
to start with, and unappealing to scavengers of
the High Arctic". The most publicised similar case
was Don Starkell, and he didn't die, as rescuers
were able to revive him, somewhat, with cryogenic
recovery techniques".

"These tragic rescues cause untold psychological
injury to SAR workers. We are asking for a couple
of billion, little enough compensation for rescue
workers, and another billion for fitting lifetime
locator beacons into the layup of all sea kayaks.
We expect little opposition to the necessary
legislative measures".
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