When *do* you make the call?

 There have been a couple of incidences recently of people scrambling in the Peak district, coming a right cropper- including broken bones and punctured lungs, getting up, dusting themselves off, wandering off the hill and making their way to hospital.

Hardcore.

While this is indeed commendable, it does raise a slightly interesting question: At what point should you call mountain rescue? Are you a wimp if you call them out? Do you feel guilty if you call the number and pull people away from their family lives/sunday tea?

 

Got a head torch? Calling out MRT coz you left yours at home is pretty shit.

There are those that don’t want people encouraged to call MRT, no matter what. There are those who want every opportunity to be out in their red jackets and positively encourage callouts.

I know a number of people who would “rather crawl off the hill with their teeth” than call out mountain rescue. An admirable, but ultimately pretty stupid opinion to hold.

Let’s not get into the rights and wrongs and whys and wherefores of calling out mountain rescue. We are not here to judge what is and what is not grounds for a callout. Someone out on the hill who is inexperienced, gets lost and ends up in the middle of no-where with darkness descending and hypothermia setting in will get the same speed of response as an experienced group of people who are very well prepared, but by bad luck, have someone fall and break a leg.

There is no difference here. It doesn’t matter *how* you got into the circumstances - it isn’t the position of the team to judge your competence on the hill. The important thing is getting the casualty off the hill in the most expedient way possible, and in the best shape possible.

I am utterly certain that MRT would rather be called to help someone who had fallen off a scramble and broken a rib or 3 (+/- punctured lung) than get a call later in the evening from the wife/husband of the injured party saying that they haven’t arrived home. We’d all rather be on a timely search and rescue than a non-timely search for a body.


The thing with mountainous areas and conditions- things can get worse quite slowly,  there are mistakes compounded on mistakes, and it is never entirely clear exactly when things go from “uncomfortable” to “Oh shit. NOW we’re in trouble”. Occasionally there is a very clear delineation- it is a fall or a twist, or a rockfall. However, it is quite often the compounded errors of judgement that lead to that particular moment that are the key.

All the way along, you think “nah, we’re ok, we don’t need MRT” until you do.

It is making the right call at the right time - Hopefully, that means realising when things are going to the wall and making a responsible decision to call it a day and get off the hill before things get worse.

Personally- I’ve limped off Kinder with a very badly sprained ankle (that I initially thought I’d broken). I’ve hypothermically run off the hill because I knew that if I sat down and called out MRT, I’d have sat there and got cold for 3 hours until they turned up, at which point I would have been asked “can you walk?” Id have said “yes”, and we’d have walked off anyway.

I’ve also called out the RNLI inshore lifeboat as a mate couldn’t get on his windsurfer in pretty gnarly conditions. Was that the right call? He was miffed that I’d called them and reckoned he could swim in, but damn, I was glad I made the call.

They were happy to come out and get him as well. Lesson learned there: - don’t go out in conditions like that.

I'm going to prepare for this weather by pouring myself another beer and sitting next to the fire.

So what is the long and short of this?

Be sensible. Take the kit you’ll need on the hill - Remember- it gets dark EVERY day of the year so *some* kind of lighting is a cunning plan. Know how to use your kit. Make good decisions. Realise when things are taking a turn for the worse and act on that in a positive way. Better to get off the hill and back to a nice pint than watch yourselves make increasingly bad and desperate decisions.

However. If you find yourself in dire circumstances, through bad luck or bad judgement, do not hesitate to call MRT.