Amherst Fire Chief Tim Nelson said it took firefighters about 48 minutes to retrieve three Hampshire College students from a campus building roof, but the rescue effort cost about $550 and tied up department resources.
AMHERST – It took Amherst firefighters less than an hour to rescue three Hampshire College students stranded on the roof of a Hampshire College building Monday night. But the cost of the operation was roughly $550 — plus the frustration of wasting the fire department's time and resources, according to Amherst Fire Chief W. Tim Nelson, who plans to bill the students.
On Tuesday, Nelson blasted the students, all of whom attend the prestigious liberal arts college, calling them "idiots" who consciously decided to scale a building and jump onto the roof of a neighboring building. After realizing that they couldn't get down from the 1-story building, and that their 20-foot perch was too high to jump from, one of the students phoned for help.
It took about 48 minutes to remove the students from the building's flat roof, but the price of mobilizing five firefighters, one engine and an ambulance shouldn't be absorbed by town taxpayers, said Nelson, who'd rather let the students swallow the bill.
"They are idiots — period! There was no excuse for it," Nelson said.
As some critics have pointed out, Amherst's fire services are already budgeted for the year and supported by property taxes, so the rescue comes at no extra cost to taxpayers. But Nelson's plan to bill the students jibes with a growing trend by public agencies to hold negligent hikers, errant skiers and other misguided people accountable for their rescues — a trend strongly opposed by some groups.
For example, the National Association for Search and Rescue strongly opposes the concept of billing for services rendered, saying it may deter people in danger from seeking help. "The public needs to understand that there's going to be someone there to help them, and you shouldn't worry about downstream consequences," Howard Paul, a spokesman for the association, told USA Today.
The issue has prompted some states to set caps on billing amounts, while others have enacted laws, such as New Hampshire's negligent hiker law, aimed at recouping rescue mission costs. Most cases that have gained national attention in recent years have involved mountaintop or other elaborate rescues that triggered large-scale public safety responses.
The Hampshire College case would hardly seem to fit the bill, but Nelson said he intends on sending bills to the students for wasting his department's time and money. "What if we had a call for someone who was having a heart attack," the fire chief said, noting that response times would have been delayed if there had been more pressing emergencies Monday night. "This took away from people who really need our help," he said.
A Hampshire College spokeswoman said a school investigation is under way. She characterized the incident as a "lapse in judgment."
Material from the Associated Press and USA Today was used in this report.