DENVER (AP) – Three climbers already had died on Oregon’s Mount Hood when a helicopter coming for survivors crashed and tumbled 1,000 feet down a steep snowfield.

The 2002 accident, captured on video in horrifying detail, appears to symbolize the costs and risks of alpine rescue – but a new study says such dramatic outcomes are the exception.

American mountaineering deaths and injuries are declining even though the number of climbers is increasing, according to the American Alpine Club, a nonprofit group with 7,000 members.

The group plans to use the study, which will be released today, to lobby against state laws allowing climbers to be billed for their rescues.

“Over the years, we’ve come to see a pattern emerge – that after a major climbing accident, there was media coverage that painted climbers as risk-taking daredevils who put tremendous costs on the public and risk on the rescuers,” said Lloyd Athearn, and author of the study.

Five states – California, Hawaii, Idaho, New Hampshire and Oregon – have laws allowing agencies to charge for rescues under certain circumstances.

The report says New Hampshire has used its reckless hiking law eight times since it was enacted in 1999, but mainly against inexperienced and unequipped hikers rather than the technical rock- and ice-climbers the study focused on.

New Hampshire Fish and Game Lt. Todd Bogardus said the law is aimed at irresponsible people.

“If you go out there and get injured, that type of stuff happens, we’re not going to charge you for that,” he said Wednesday. “But if you went out and did some gross recklessness – you didn’t heed warnings, you didn’t go out properly prepared – then we would review it and see if that was somebody that we would need to charge.”

Climbing rescues cost less than many people realize, Athearn said. The military doesn’t charge because it considers the rescues a training opportunity, and most mountain search and rescue teams are volunteers who don’t expect to be paid.

The study suggests that charging for rescues could actually worsen the danger for climbers and rescuers because some people might put off calling for help.

Charley Shimanski, the education director for the Mountain Rescue Association, which opposes rescue fees, recalled one rescue in which the call came in so late that search crews had to grope through darkness to rescue a high-altitude hiker with an injured ankle.

When the hiker’s wife was told there was no charge, she said, “I wish I’d have known that. I would have called you a lot earlier,” he said.

But the Oregon State Sheriffs’ Association supports Oregon’s fee-for-rescue law as a way to reimburse taxpayers for rescuing people who were unprepared or negligent.

“It just doesn’t hurt to have a tool or two in your belt,” said Art Martinak, the group’s executive director.

In the 2002 Mount Hood rescue, three parties of climbers were near the summit of the 11,240-foot peak when the top group tumbled into the others, and nine people plunged into a 25-foot-deep crevasse. Three died and three were seriously injured. The helicopter crew survived the crash.

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On the Net:

American Alpine Club: http://www.americanalpineclub.org/

AP-ES-05-18-05 1547EDT