Anchorage Daily News

WASILLA - Three ambulances and a rescue crew showed up for Kurt Brehm's head-on accident in April on Trunk Road. Responders had to cut the 39-year-old nursing student from his mangled 1999 Mazda.

In comparison, 25 responders spent 18 hours managing a potentially critical scene last week when Robert Adkins, a professional truck driver, rolled a liquefied natural gas truck on the Parks Highway near Hurricane Gulch.

The accident closed the state's main north-south artery for nearly 24 hours as crews handled potentially flammable methane venting from the tanker.

The response is expected to cost the Matanuska-Susitna Borough thousands of dollars.

But despite the different scales of the emergency response, the borough sent both men the same bill: a $750 rescue fee.

That all-or-nothing flat fee has prompted emergency officials to propose adopting a sliding scale that would take into account the complexity of the rescue.

An internal committee is working up guidelines to assess fees for rescues, and expects to present them to the Mat-Su Assembly - and the public - later this year.

"Something like what happened up on the Parks Highway will be a much higher bill than somebody in an accident who has to have the door popped open," said Dennis Brodigan, the borough's emergency services director.

He's still working out the details, including the fee range. Borough emergency services only started charging the $750 rescue fee two or three years ago, and only for those involving heavy hydraulic equipment such as the Jaws of Life, a high number of responders, or a lengthy response, Brodigan said.

The borough started charging the fees after Brodigan decided to upgrade dive and off-road rescue teams, supplying them with professional equipment for the first time, he said. The fees help offset the costs, which are also covered by taxpayer dollars.

The Central Mat-Su Fire Department also is looking at charging a fee for its response to fires, a practice that is widespread nationally, Chief James Steele said. The fees could range from $250 to $500, and would only apply to some types of calls, according to a draft plan that will also need Assembly approval.

Victims of house fires would not be charged, Steele said.

People conducting illegal burns, leaving piles unattended, failing to deal with multiple false alarms would be charged.

Brodigan said he hopes to charge people from outside the borough who come here to burn cars, as has happened at Jim Creek off the Knik River.

"They don't pay taxes, yet we have to spend the money to put their fire out for them," he said.

Money from the rescue fee would go into the area-wide emergency services budget. Fire fees would go to the departments involved.

JUST ONE OF MANY BILLS

The Brehm family probably got the rescue fee in the mail. Tammy Brehm, his wife, said she isn't sure.

"I haven't even looked at all the bills," she said. "When they come in the mail, I stick them in the file and they go to the attorney."

Her husband, 39, who suffered a broken knee bone in the accident, continues to need physical therapy, she said.

In early April, Brehm was driving Trunk Road with his teenage daughter and one of her friends. It was snowing, the roads were icy, and visibility was poor, according to a rescuer's report.

A 20-year-old woman in a Dodge pickup coming toward Brehm lost control and collided with his car, according to Alaska State Troopers. She was cited for failure to exercise due care to avoid a collision.

The girls escaped injury. Rescuers cut off the roof of the car to extract Brehm and took the trio to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center.

Brehm later discovered the force of the crash ripped a piece of bone from his knee, his wife said.

This week, he started nursing school at the University of Alaska Anchorage.

With all the standing involved, his wife said, she hopes his injury doesn't keep Brehm from being a nurse.

"If so, then God has something else laid out," she said.

The family hopes the other driver will pay the rescue fee.

NEED FOR NEW POLICY

Borough officials couldn't provide statistics on how frequently they send out bills for rescue fees or whether they all get paid.

Brodigan said insurance companies almost always cover the costs.

He provided a recent example of a rescue that likely garnered a bill: a group of 10 people stranded by rising water got stuck on a sandbar near Knik Glacier earlier this month. A helicopter plucked them, unhurt, to safety but four or five Mat-Su rescue technicians spent 12 hours trying to help.

The Parks Highway LNG truck rollover certainly qualified as well.

Central Mat-Su Fire Department and stations such as Talkeetna sent three full-time emergency officers and 22 other responders. They spent as much as 18 hours up the Parks.

Truck driver Adkins said he wasn't going to comment when contacted earlier this week.

A trooper cited him for violating basic speed regulations at the time of the accident, which occurred before 9 a.m. Aug. 18 on a stretch of the Parks heading up Broad Pass toward Cantwell.

Officials say it could be weeks before state investigators wrap up a larger look at what caused the rollover, including standard toxicology tests.

The accident closed the Parks Highway, gumming up car and commercial truck traffic.

It also prompted the Alaska Railroad to delay trains in the area.

The borough is sending a bill for the rescue fee to TG Services, the company Adkins was driving for, Brodigan said.

Find Zaz Hollander online at adn.com/contact/zhollander or call 352-6711.

ADVERTISEMENT