Slow news day + somebody wants’ their 15 minutes of fame and you have the ingredients for a lawsuit.

A woman died whitewater rafting on Glacier Creek outside of Girdwood Alaska. The local news must have a slow day because following the reports of the fatality they started to do some investigative work. See Raft accident brings safety concerns.

The TV station interviewed the local fire chief and found a “rafter” for some comments. The report does not indicate whether the “rafter” knew what he was talking about, was a commercial operation or just some guy who volunteered to be on TV. Here are some of his quotes from the story.

The rafters were wearing helmets and dry suits but they were all in one raft which is something experienced rafter Gary Klink says is uncommon.

Klink says part of being a responsible tour operator is knowing when to turn down clients.

“There’s always that desire to put anybody on anything that they want but if they’re reputable they’ll say you probably shouldn’t be doing this creek, you need this amount of experience,” he said.

The issue is not whether the raft company was wrong or right. Great arguments can be made on either side of this discussion. Until a credible rating for the creek is established who knows what the commercial operator should have done.

What is evident is this guys comments, whether intending to or not, are the basic starting blocks for a lawsuit. In less than a minute this “rafter” has provided everything anyone needs to file and possible win a claim.

If he is a commercial operator his own insurance rates are going to go up because of these stupid statements. If he is a private boater he does not know jack.

Either way the TV station got a story, someone got their 15 minutes of fame and the rest of us may have to deal with a lawsuit because of it.