[ingalls]

First off, super glad to hear your friends are out of the field safe.

Want to address one point however: "The SOS button is very expensive. Extremely expensive"

In my experience on multiple SAR teams (Search and Rescue), this is almost never the case in North America. Search and Rescue is one of the few services that is almost uniformly free [1]. Thousands and thousands of volunteer hours every year keep it that way. In fact, the two most prominent professional organizations for SAR (NASAR [2] & MRA [3]) both have longstanding policies that teams should not charge for rescue. On a personal level, I can tell you that the majority of the rescues/recoveries I have worked in the last decade would have been easier or led to a better outcome if the subject had called earlier. Embarrassment and fear of cost are the two primary reasons I have had subjects quote as the reasons they delayed calling for rescue, even after they knew self-rescue would not be possible. When you realize self-rescue isn't possible, call us early.

[1] The only counties that I know of that charge for rescue are in Utah: https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=54909102&itype=CMS... [2] https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2009/05/billing-search... [3] https://mra.org/what-is-mras-position-on-charging-for-search...

[kenhwang]

As someone with a bunch of idiotic friends that always find themselves needing SAR in North America. The rule of thumb within the group that has generally held true is: if you're on federal lands it's fully free, but if you're in resort, city, or state jurisdiction they'll absolutely try to claw back the costs.

The SAR might be technically "free", but they'll categorize as many things under "medical emergency" as possible and throw the book of fines at you.

[PierceJoy]

You might want to change North America to just America. In Canada, SAR is free no matter where you are. Clawing back costs isn't a thing here.

[kenhwang]

Free as long as you didn't sign an agreement saying you'd be responsible for the cost of SAR. Such as breaking resort rules by going out of bounds[1].

It's really the same as the US (other than our states and cities acting more like corporations), it comes down to who gets dispatched: if it's the government you're fine, but oftentimes if you're near a resort, it comes down to whether dispatch thinks the resort staff, a government agency, or a volunteer group is better suited for the rescue. If it's the resort, you might've agreed to give them the legal right to claw back costs.

[1] https://www.metro.us/grouse-bans-4-bills-for-rescue/

[PierceJoy]

Your link doesn’t really support your claim. It was a “fine” from a private resort, that by their own account is entirely unenforceable[1]. Essentially a request for a donation to SAR.

In practise, SAR is free in Canada no matter where you are. There are hundreds and hundreds of SAR calls in BC per year, and not a single person rescued has been required to pay a cent. Many of them do make donations though as a token of thanks.

[1] https://vancouversun.com/news/costs-still-being-tallied-afte...

[tlavoie]

Related, there is an excellent short (5-episode) series following Vancouver's North Shore Rescue. https://www.knowledge.ca/program/search-and-rescue-north-sho...

It certainly puts their efforts into perspective, including how easily people can run into trouble unprepared.

[Kwpolska]

The country you’re thinking of is called United States.

[PierceJoy]

It's incredibly common to refer to the US as America.

[circular_lights]

I love that your friends had enough instances to develop rules of thumb. :D Sounds like a fun bunch.

[throwawaylinux]

Whoa, SAR fines you if you have a medical emergency? As opposed to fire, flood, storm, natural disaster, mechanical breakdown, or just getting lost?

[kenhwang]

In one instance, yes, for simply getting so lost in the mountains in a state park that they decided it was best to call SAR when provisions ran out after dark. Dispatch routed the rescue request to the closest city fire department, they came out with a helicopter. City then left them with the bill for the helicopter (which was covered by health insurance as medical transport minus the deductible), and fines for trespassing (they weren't supposed go off marked trails) and staying in the park after closing/dark.

[throwawaylinux]

Oh, SAR will "creatively adjust" the incident report when people have health insurance, so that they can bill them for a medical emergency and have their insurance cover it? Sounds like fraud.

[kenhwang]

SAR doesn't care about whether you have insurance. They simply stick you with a bill if they think you were negligent or the situation shouldn't have happened if there was adequate preparation and/or skill.

Then you, the rescued, file a claim with whatever insurance you think is appropriate and make your case. Maybe insurance investigates and looks up the SAR incident report, maybe they don't. Either way SAR isn't part of any alleged insurance fraud.

[throwawaylinux]

you said this:

> The SAR might be technically "free", but they'll categorize as many things under "medical emergency" as possible and throw the book of fines at you.

And then seemed to imply that's what they did when someone just got lost. Okay they will do it regardless if you have insurance or not, still fraud isn't it?

[giobox]

While this is great to know, the SOS button is still fundamentally potentially a completely open-ended liability if you haven't taken Garmin's 30 buck annual insurance option for it. Even with that, you are only capped at $50k to best of my knowledge. Your Utah example illustrates this.

In a real SOS situation the cost is likely immaterial, but I can absolutely understand why people would wait a bit longer than they should before pressing.

[bombcar]

Having two-way communications would help tremendously, because then you can say "well, pressing the button will cost $100, but the person on the other end will know if I need rescue now or later".

[PierceJoy]

> the SOS button is still fundamentally potentially a completely open-ended liability if you haven't taken Garmin's 30 buck annual insurance option for it.

Not in Canada. SAR is completely free in Canada for the reason you've basically alluded to in your next paragraph.

> but I can absolutely understand why people would wait a bit longer than they should before pressing.

I've been to a number of presentations from the local SAR, and whenever they're asked about this, they say that the reason SAR has no cost is precisely because they never want people to hesitate before pressing the button or making the call.

[naikrovek]

> capped at $50k

oh well thank God for that. this won't bankrupt anyone.

[COGlory]

Thanks for sharing. I'm relatively new to back country adventures (moved here from RI in 2018), and have heard from peers stories about bankrupting rescues. Glad to know that is not necessarily the case.

I can say I was completely out of my comfort zone when two tried to walk out, that turned into the most stressful day of our lives. I think everyone thought they were going to die: the two walking out from hypothermia, me from a bear that didn't want to leave me alone when I was on foot looking for them. It wound up taking them hours longer than expected to walk out, and I kept getting stuck looking for them, to the point I thought I was sleeping in my car that night (while they potentially froze to death) because I was like 12 miles from a main road, and had no cell signal, and hadn't found them yet. I'd much rather have called S&R!!

[Shocka1]

As a big-time hunter myself, I'm glad you got them all out. It sounds like the ones that stayed back were well prepared. Surprise snowfall is no joke and can catch out even the best mountaineers. Countless day hikers have lost their lives in smaller mountains like the Adirondacks in Upstate NY, let alone the big mountains in the Western US. Thankfully it's never happened to me, but I personally never venture into the mountains without the ability to survive for weeks if needed.

[akelly]

A friend's 18yo brother was motorcycling in the mountains with their father, crashed and broke his femur. Ambulance would have taken hours, they had helicopter rescue insurance, but the only helicopter company that operated there wouldn't take it. Got a $25k bill for the helicopter ride and negotiated down to $16k iirc.

[dave78]

> Search and Rescue is one of the few services that is almost uniformly free [1].

I wonder if this will remain true once everyone with an iPhone has access to it. The increase in volume could easily overwhelm the volunteers, no?

[ingalls]

The next couple years will give us more concrete numbers, but based on my personal experience, I doubt this will change call volume significantly. We're mostly seeing dramatically increased call volume due to more people being involved in backcountry recreation and less so due to increased comms coverage through cell or satellite devices.

While there is the argument that these devices give increased peace of mind that the backcountry is somehow "safer", I don't know that I've seen this cause an uptick in callouts for our team. Subjects needing rescue are still usually hesitant to call for rescue and usually try to self extricate, even when they should likely initiate a rescue. Most of our call-outs happen at night for this reason.

That said, the upside of these devices is significant - especially in the area of improving our response time and reducing total callout time. The advent of the E911 Phase 2 (including location in 911 calls) has made the majority of our call-outs dramatically simpler & faster. What was formerly a multi-step process which might involve something like deploying multiple hasty teams to sweep large areas; determining subject location; deploying specialized resources for extraction -- can now jump straight to deploying a single hasty team for medical while simultaneously deploying specialized resources given that the terrain & access is known via the subject's location.

Edit: I can't edit my above comment, but just got confirmation from a friend both Grand and Wayne have revised their rescue policy and now only charge in exceptional circumstances - https://www.grandcountyutah.net/734/Donate-to-GCSAR

[dave78]

> Subjects needing rescue are still usually hesitant to call for rescue and usually try to self extricate

Someone with the knowledge and foresight to bring along a Garmin or PLB or something probably has a decent understanding of what it means to use it - waking people up and deploying expensive assets - and because of that I can see why they'd probably hesitate (it surely would trigger my "I don't want to be a bother" instinct).

I hope once every iPhone user has the same capability that it doesn't become an "eternal September"-like moment and flip too far the other way into overly casual use.

Regardless, you're much closer to the situation than I am so I'll defer to your expertise. Clearly, more communications in an emergency is always going to be better, so I look forward to seeing stories about how this new feature saves lives.

And thanks for your efforts in providing rescue services to the people who need them!

[macNchz]

That decision making process is a key part of what's taught in a wilderness medicine course: assessing the situation at hand and deciding whether it's necessary to evacuate for a higher level of care, and if so, whether you need a rapid evac like a helicopter, or can walk or be carried out with fewer resources. https://blog.nols.edu/2018/02/20/stay-or-go-infographic

I do tend to agree that this has a pretty good chance of creating more nuisance calls from people who are not in actual danger...I read the New York forest rangers reports now and then, and a big portion of the rescues involve clueless people who set off alone with no map, an hour before sunset in October wearing a tshirt and shorts.

[fastaguy88]

At least those people probably need to be rescued. The more annoying examples are people who are not lost or in danger, but just decided they were tired and did not want to walk back out.

[kenhwang]

From my chats with friends who do SAR, they'd much prefer you use it more casually if its the two way communication kind. SAR volunteers really are a special breed, they're already volunteering to risk their lives to save you and most days don't have incident, so text messages back and forth with the potential for rescue is a bit exciting.

Like, the moment you're sufficiently sure you might be lost or at risk/danger. Then at least they know you're out there and where to start looking from your last known location even if you don't need help yet. They might also be able to trivially guide you for self-rescue instead of the situation escalating into requiring rescue or becoming a much more complex rescue.

But if it's just a simply SOS device, then, well, yeah, it can become a nuisance because that can mean "I'm a bit lost" or "I'm quickly dying" and anything in-between and they have no way of knowing.

[jrochkind1]

> We're mostly seeing dramatically increased call volume due to more people being involved in backcountry recreation and less so due to increased comms coverage through cell or satellite devices.

I wonder if part of the reason more people are involved in backcountry recreation is due to it not feeling as dangerous as it used to because people figure (rightly or wrongly) they can always get help from my phone.

Anyway, I agree with your reasoning that it's important that backcountry rescue be free, becuase of people not calling as early as they should because of worry of cost, and resulting injury, death, or just more complicated rescue... but even though you're assuring me of it, I'm still not sure it's true! I feel like I hear stories all the time (which googling seems to confirm?) of people being charged when someone determines they deserved it or something, depending on who ends up responding... which would make me reluctant to SOS too. I believe you the outfits you work with never charge, but when I'm in an emergency or possible-emergency, I have no way of knowing if it's going to end up being that situation or not... which is a problem.

[katbyte]

i doubt it, most new folk getting into it rarely think about what happens if it goes sideways and are totally ignorant of the dangers. i usually have to be "buy an inreach please or at the very least let people know where you are going"

mostly its just made it safer because you now can call for help isntead of having to hike out

[int_19h]

Out of curiosity, do you find it at all useful when people who call in SAR have some kind of handheld radio transceiver? (I'm lumping everything here - FRS/GMRS, MURS, ham sets etc).

[LeoPanthera]

The iPhone service sends a pre-written SMS to the 911 service. They decide whether to deploy rescue services or not.

[matharmin]

I've seen stats that showed a significant increase in the number of callouts without major injuries in a period around 20 years ago, which correlated with mobile phones becoming popular. Suddenly it was easy for someone to call rescue services when they're stuck, where previously they would have had to make a plan. And maybe it also increased the number of people going out into the mountains now that they had an easy way to call for help.

But overall, the rescue services managed easily. The growth was slow enough over a couple of years, that it's easy enough to scale up the number of volunteers as needed. In my experience, when you get more callouts, more people are eager to volunteer. No-one wants to spend regular time doing training when there aren't any callouts.

[jsjohnst]

> Search and Rescue is one of the few services that is almost uniformly free

Just wanted to come and confirm based on first hand experience that this is true and also say a heart felt thank you for doing what you do!

[post_break]

Check this video out about that being free: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u49b-_cWlz8