You are very lucky.
**Stranded with a sprained ankle on a snow-covered mountain, Eagle Scout Scott Mason put his survival skills to work by sleeping in the crevice of a boulder and jump-starting evergreen fires with hand sanitizer gel.
He put plastic bags inside his boots to keep his feet dry as he sloshed through mountain runoff hidden beneath waist-deep snow. After three cold days last April, rescue crews spotted him hiking toward the summit of Mount Washington, the Northeast’s highest mountain.
New Hampshire officials praised his resourcefulness. So grateful was he for his rescuers that Mason, 17, sent $1,000 to the state.
Sometime later, New Hampshire sent him a bill: $25,734.65 for the cost of rescuing him.
New Hampshire is one of eight states with laws allowing billing for rescue costs, but only New Hampshire has made frequent attempts to do so — even strengthening its law last year to allow the suspension of hiking, fishing and driver’s licenses of those who don’t pay.**
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nh-bills-lost-hikers-for-cost-of-rescue/
I’m not sure how it is you think I was lucky unless it was to have father who had survival skills. The kids with shorts and cherry red knees were from a camp. The wind was blowing around 40 mph, and the temperature between 38 and 40 degrees and it was drizzling. Good hypothermia conditions. Even though it was mid July, Mt. Washington gave us nasty weather. Pop had us dressed in three layers of tops and bottoms and socks, warm jackets and rain gear. If he had not been able to see the next cairn using our leap frog system, we would have gone back the way we came which was below the fog (cloud cover) and returned to our starting point, car and parking lot. As it was we made the top, we sent the boys down in the railcars, and Pop and I walked back down an easier trail.