High school senior trips and doesn't break a leg
Categories: Teens & tweens, Places to go, In the news, Alcohol & drugs, Toys & games
There you are, at home in the beautiful Santa Cruz mountains, just South of San Francisco when your son, a straight-A student out for a hike in the woods, calls and tells you that he's broken his leg and isn't really sure where he is. Naturally, you'd call 9-1-1 immediately and get the search and rescue teams moving. Now imagine they find your son, only his leg is fine and the only tripping he's done involves magic mushrooms.That's the situation Matthew Rosenberg's mother found herself in. When she got the call from her son, she immediately contacted emergency services, just as any of us would have done. The problem is, after spending between $5,000 and $10,000 to do the search, Matthew was found standing -- uninjured -- at the bottom of a ravine.
"He wasn't normal," said Capt. Bill Finch of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and part of the rescue effort. "He was like one of those guys who's been drinking a lot and starts saying, 'I love ya, man.'"
There was an episode of Leave it to Beaver where the Beaver decides to fake being sick so that he can get out of going to school. I remember the doctor (who still made house calls) telling Beaver that he shouldn't pretend to be sick because it means the doctor can's visit people who really are sick. That lesson has always stuck with me. Unfortunately, it seems Matthew missed that episode.
I don't know if it's fair to make Matthew or his parents reimburse the state for the cost of finding him, but it sure seems to me that he ought to think about doing it anyway.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
LS 5-01-2008 @ 11:24AM
Yeah, the kid, not the parents, should have to reimburse them for part, if not all, of the expense of rescuing him. Because the call amounts to a prank call, and had he not been doing drugs, he wouldn't have made the call, which then took the rescue crews away from their job of helping people who were *really* hurt (potentially).
By actually having to work for, and then fork over, the money, this kid will learn that there are consequences for his actions. If the parents pay, or the situation is dropped, he'll learn nothing, and is more likely to do something stupid like this again.
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Meagan 5-01-2008 @ 11:34AM
Personally, if my kid were tripping in the middle of the woods, and in this case it appears that he really DIDN'T know where he was, I'd still call emergency services. Someone who's that out of it could well be in just as much danger as someone with a broken leg, if not more because at least someone with a broken leg can give rational clues to searchers over the phone (assuming they have a phone and aren't in shock). Kids do stupid things all the time and with luck his parents are intelligent enough to make sure he knows just how stupid it was, but I don't think his parents should have to pay... even if it was caused by his own actions it seems like the kid WAS in danger... that's not a prank call.
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LS 5-01-2008 @ 12:01PM
Good point, Meagan... but I still think the kid should face *some* sort of consequence for doing drugs.
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Meagan 5-01-2008 @ 1:19PM
I agree. If I were his parent I'd be livid, and from the article it sounds like his parents are starting to move from their state of shock into the category of seriously pissed.
Nancy 5-01-2008 @ 12:29PM
This is California - believe me, his parents will get billed for at least part of it. If it was my son he would have to fork over his own hard earned cash to pay at least half of the bill.
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Pam 5-02-2008 @ 6:05AM
This kid should pay every penny of that bill!! Not the parents, but the kid even if it takes him years to pay it off.....Get them where it really hurts and in the wallet would do it for me.....
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