Hoax Calls
Got a call out at 12 today, the Steep Point ranger station received a Mayday call from a vessel supposedly off False Entrance. End result, 2 volunteers in a rescue vessel for 6 hours, over 500 litres of fuel, a search plane flown down from Karratha, 2 hours of searching by the plane while we waited in Steep Point in case we had missed something before finally getting the all clear to return home to Denham.
Sadly some miserable prick gets a laugh out of his childish prank but what if something serious happened in the meantime and these valuable resources were tied up as we treat all calls as real emergencies.
Personally if I caught him before the police did he would be walking real funny with a VHF radio and aerial shoved right up his clacker
Paully
Posts: 3246
Date Joined: 15/08/09
A month or so
In the can for that BS imo
Edit: unless they pay a bill!
meglodon
Posts: 5981
Date Joined: 17/06/10
Isn't there some law
I thought that there was a law that if some one caused resources to be deployed as a result of a false report, and that person was caught they were required to pay the costs of deploying those resources.
I could be wrong but I have it in my thoughts that a law was brought in as a result of hoax emergency calls for help.
Muppet
Posts: 408
Date Joined: 23/11/09
Might be a law about it
but that doesn't stop the dickheads doing it. And what are the chances of getting the bloke that did it ? Not great.
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carnarvonite
Posts: 8627
Date Joined: 24/07/07
Call
Call was received by Steep Point ranger and not by my or any other base stations in Denham so would have suspected someone in the vicinity of Steep Point with access to a VHF playing silly buggers.
We saw 4 small runabouts inside the south passage while we were waiting for the all clear from the search plane so it could have been from anyone there
carnarvonite
Posts: 8627
Date Joined: 24/07/07
Law
There is a law against creating a false alarm and it does cover repaying the costs involved. There was a case in Karratha a few years back where two blokes were fined thousands of dollars and if I remember made to pay somewhere near $50K.
What pissed me off was that the missus and I had only just chucked a line in to catch a whiting or two when the phone rang, had to pack up and drive back along the beach and head for home
Rob H
Posts: 5745
Date Joined: 18/01/12
We were at sea during that
We were at sea during that one.
He said something like 8 people aboard including a pregnant lady.
Charged costs but had no capacity to pay if I remember.
One of them was son of an ex-fisherman
Give a man a mask, and he'll show you his true face...
The older you get the more you realize that no one has a f++king clue what they're doing.
Everyone's just winging it.