TBF mountain hiking is considered an extreme sport and you would need a private insurance for helicopter rescue anyway. Germany, Austria and others include this if you join the alpine club, but it’s not part of the normal public health insurance.
this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2026
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And the fact that this is a twitter screenshot from the polymarket account is capitalism in a nutshell
Selling the man made horrors at the edge of comprehension back to us as entertainment
Pretty wild stuff.
The 32-year-old nurse, who works in wound care at a hospital in Billings, Montana, did a self-assessment. He was alert. There was little pain or blood. And the pole wasn’t moving. The group used a satellite-based communication device, a Garmin inReach, to contact local authorities and inform them of their plan to self-rescue.
https://apnews.com/article/montana-hiker-impaled-pole-self-rescue-d35444319d0fe4249ab878237625e862
There was little pain or blood.
The blood is all on the inside. That's where it's supposed to be right?
When impaled by something, be it pole or knife, it is usually best to not pull it out because it kind of keeps it plugged to some extent. Also, if the right picture shows him impaled it doesn't look like it hit any bigger blood vessel or pierce the lung.
Source: I am a First Responder at my work and was MFAP B in the German army
and was MFAP B
Gesundheit
Master Functional Auxiliary Practitioner, Bronze. It's a big deal.
Hope the AP at least got some kinda payment from Garmin for that pointless product plug
Is detail pointless? Guess that must be a twitter generation thing.
More of a "selling out is hella lame" Gen X thing, but I'll take that compliment anyway
So glad I love in a first world country. Americans have no idea what civilized really is.
Helicopter rescue costs are pretty common even in places with socialized healthcare, especially if they can be labeled as reckless extractions. Standard European Health Insurance Cards (EHIC) generally do not cover mountain or helicopter rescue transport. A lot of different Alpine or Mountaineering Clubs offer insurance directly for this purpose as part of their fees.
Which makes sense really. Socialized networks shouldn't have to absorb the cost of people seeking a dangerous thrill. In the end it comes down to whether you want to treat the cancer of a couple children, or save a rich guy from a mountain and the consequences of his own poor decisions?
They do cover rescue costs, but only up to a certain limit. B You can get a temporary (and affordable) travel insurance which can cover special activities in the mountains.
If you don't have such an insurance and need a helicopter rescue, the cost will not be as high as in the US, but can still be thousands of euros.
Nephew got bit by a tick while on an island in Stockholm's archipelago. Developed a ring around the bite. Rather than have them wait for 3 hours to take the boat, or even get a taxi boat, a helicopter had him at the hospital and under care within an hour. For that and two nights in the hospital, they got charged nothing.
When he was released, he was on his way back to the helipad to get a ride back to the island and we had to explain to him that we were gonna need to get the bus/boat.
Which makes sense really. Socialized networks shouldn’t have to absorb the cost of people seeking a dangerous thrill. In the end it comes down to whether you want to treat the cancer of a couple children, or save a rich guy from a mountain and the consequences of his own poor decisions?
False dichotomy; we can do both a thousand times over if we taxed a single rich person properly.
It's only a false dichotomy if we were to tax the rich appropriately....... As of now and for the foreseeable future it's just reality.
The leaders of pretty much every western government with a liberal democracy would rather watch children die than tax the wealthy.
Honestly, as a European, I'd try and to the same. Not because I'd need to pay 2.7 million dollars for a helicopter ride, but because I'd feel terrible occupying it for an hour, along with the rescue team, when someone else in the area could be dying.
These are not the same pictures.
I’f leave it in the hands of mountain rescue. They’d decide how to get me down. I’m not qualified.
It sounds like the hiker was reasonably qualified, and had a device to contact emergency services if things changed (assuming he was still able to use them). Certainly not the choice I'd make, but my qualifications are much different.
Same. I heard moutan rescue went up to someone looking a ride home. It was a sprained ankle. They where walked down.
I once drove an hour with a pretty severe concussion because I planned to just go home and sleep off what I would later learn was a small crater in the front of my skull. After I got home and was poking at the injury in the bathroom mirror, I realized I could feel pieces of my skull moving around so I decided I should probably go to the hospital...
The process of getting my skull fixed with extremely shitty insurance was a whole other set of horrors that in some ways sucked even more than the skull crater.
Why leaving the ad for the scam market instead of censoring it?
Sometimes we forget.
In a lot of rescue situation if you can walk, you will walk. A helicopter has its own risks and issues.
Being able to financially recover being issue numero uno...
Even a regular ambulance bill sucks, much less a heli rescue.
here in Canada I had an accident once. Was loaded onto a STARS helicopter, flown 80 miles to the nearest city, unloaded into an ambulance for the rest of the trip to the hospital, x-rayed, stitches, and two surgeries.
Only thing I paid for was a dollar for some really bad coffee from the hospital canteen.
Here in Slovenia tourists with inappropriate mountaneering equipment constantly get hurt in the mountains and are rescued by helicopter without having to pay for anything.
Croatia, Austria, Slovenia... going up the mountains in flip-flops in 35+ degrees Celsius weather with little to no water. Every. Damn. Year. Lol.
That's fucked up, man... The time has come for violent protest. We need to organise and stop this bullshit. Half decent coffee in a healthcare setting is a human right.
My mom was on Medicare here in the US (the insurance that the disabled and elderly get, that Bernie based his single payer plan off of expanding). Her bowel ruptured, several hours in the ER, 1 hour helicopter ride, 30 days in the ICU, a few days in a step down, an ambulance ride 2 hours back to her house.
Never got a bill for it.
But nooooo, it'd be so horrible if all Americans had access to that.
Not overly related but I rarely hear of STARS. At one point our school (grades 7-12)did a 24 hour relay marathon for STARS (no idea on money that was raised), but being a fat kid I was support crew making sure people were ready for their lap had water etc. They didn't technically budget the support people sleeping time or spots to sleep. I slept in the closest bathroom since it was done in a city park, but not long or often. Though runners will still up about every hour for their lap (probably 10-15min or so run been awhile) which I'd have hated more anyways.
Overall I think it was still good to put effort for STARS but you wouldn't have heard me saying that at the time.
Ya STARS is one of those things most people don't pay much attention to until it's needed, but they are a really nice thing to have especially considering how large our country is.
My trip with them was about 80 miles to Winnipeg, and took about 18 minutes from the time they stuffed me in the back to the time they put me into the ambulance at the airport. I can't imagine how long that would have taken by ground.
Honestly I don't think I needed to get there that fast, but they were worried because I had head trauma and had lost a lot of blood so they erred on the side of caution, which was understandable.
https://www.stars.ca/ is their website if anyone is wondering what STARS is.)
It's not just a bill, it's a bill that can be over 25k
Why this is a tweet from polymarket? Why America is such a cesspit?
'Tis but a scratch!
At least, having contacted EMS, they knew they weren't going to have to drive to the hospital, and they could get the evac if they couldn't make it. And they knew enough to be sure no major organs were pierced.
If I can walk down don’t bother wasting a helicopter on me. Somebody else might need it.
Pool ride, cheaper
"I understand you were impaled but we have a few more stops before we get you to the hospital."
We have EMTALA to never restrict emergency care.
We just send their unpaid bills to collections who can then take everything you own, and then garnish your wages, to pay the debt.
There is no functional difference between medical staples and your desk stapler. #AmericanHealthcare
It's just a flesh wound!
he's going to be using "it's only a flesh wound" the rest of his life.
me_irl