Re: [Paddlewise] PFDs

On 05/01/2010 11:07 AM, Martin, Jack wrote:
>
> Darryl Johnson wrote, "But I will say this: if I *know* that you didn't put your PFD on as part of an informed decision, don't count on me to do more than the bare minimum to help you out. Not only am I not going to risk my life, I'm not even going to going to chase after your loose equipment for you."
>
> ***
>
> There was a time when I would have risen to debate much earlier in this thread.  But I do now rise -- or at least react -- to Darryl's comments because I found myself bristling a little when I read the statement above.  At first, anyway.  In the early days of PaddleWise, I'd have condemned this attitude of justifiable neglect for another paddler.  But I take Darryl's point: maybe we're not our brother's PFD-keeper.  Is there something in life that *requires* us to take disproportionate personal risk to compensate for another's ambivalence or indifference to his or her own risks?
>
> For me, thirty years in the U.S. Navy -- quite a few of them as a Navy CSAR helicopter pilot, flying into bad-guy territory to bail out the military's versions of kayak-idiots who wouldn't carry a full bag of survival equipment on their PFDs -- developed an uncomfortable but firm personal belief that we still *do* have to take care of the idiots of the world.  That we really *are* our brothers' and sisters' PFD-keepers.  Okay -- maybe there's a difference between being a search and rescue professional and just being a drive-by paddler witnessing a fellow-kayaker's distress. But it doesn't work that way for me.
>
> I kinda wonder if Darryl -- or any PaddleWiser -- wouldn't unhappily do much more than "the bare minimum" for a foundering kayak-idiot -- with or without a PFD or the motivation or intent to wear one.  Faced with that disaster-in-the-making, my guess is that he -- and all of us -- would do -- if begrudgingly -- everything possible to help our less-equipped or less-experienced kayak-idiot to get the dry side up and the wet side down.   Yes, possibly even taking a disproportionate personal risk in the process.  Unless someone can cite an experience of actually paddling away from another kayaker's train-wreck on principle, I'm going to continue to believe that any of us would go well beyond "the bare minimum" if we were actually placed in that situation, and would pull out the kayak-idiots of the world even as they might not deserve in a legitimate Darwinian scenario.  'Cause that's what we *do*.
>
> Joq
>

I attempted to distinguish between the person who *knowingly* decides 
not to wear a PFD as opposed to the person who doesn't know any better 
-- like the people who paddle canoes with kids and dogs wearing jeans 
and cotton shirts in high winds.

I'll do my best for the unknowing. But I stand my ground if you 
*knowingly* put yourself in harms way. Too many times you read the 
stories about the person who drowns while trying to save someone who 
got into trouble. We think kind thoughts about the person who bravely 
threw him- or herself into the water, but that doesn't help the dead any.

My skills are not so good that I'm going to be able to give much 
assistance in conditions that put a good paddler into the water 
anyway. I know that; I'm quite happy to inform people of that fact if 
we go out together in 'iffy' conditions.

But the main thing is that I'm just sick and tired of people doing 
dumbass things and expecting someone to rescue them. Skiing or 
skidooing in out-of-bounds areas when there is a threat of avalanche, 
for example. Climbing mountains in the face of threatening weather. 
It's becoming a drain on western culture -- which is going downhill 
fast enough -- and I don't want to play any more.

I'm extremely glad there are people who volunteer to work in areas 
like nursing, policing, firefighting, SAR, etc. But their work is hard 
enough without society encouraging the mentally deficient to "do your 
thing and we'll take care of you regardless."

-- 
   Darryl (I'm going to live in the 18th century when I come back)
***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************