A 6yr. old trapped in balloon Live.

[bull]

The parents are definitely a-holes for many reasons, but there's no reason to remove the kids. Doing something like that would do far more damage than good. The best thing to do is fine them for the BS, but not fine them to the point where they have to sell their house to pay it. Maybe invoke some kind of court order that states that if they use this incident to make money, then the first thing they have to do is pay back all the costs incurred in the search. They have laws preventing criminals from profiting from their story, so why not these morons too?

I bet they'll be repaying the rescue effort money anyway. They should. The authorities will often do that with incidents that include negligence or stunts like the guy who tried to base jump off the top of a waterfall and got stuck on the cliff halfway down. I bet the police and firefighters are pissed for being made fools of now.

Nobody really made a fool of them though personally.  They were just responding to a call and doing their jobs.  I think it made them look better because they did their job diligently and put the facts aside until they KNEW there was no one in the balloon for themselves to avoid making a mistake or underestimating the situation.  I applaud them, it just made the people look like *ssholes as witnessed by the change of attitude from the beginning and ending points of this thread.

I agree in general and I applaud them too but when they're sent out on a bogus rescue calls I bet they still feel a little foolish. Especially when it's a hoax.

[472 R/T SE]

Children wouldn't happen to be home schooled would they?

Nothing against it, just curious.