Yes there are

I like the idea of the MRT being ‘our’ MRT for us experienced folk and woe betide anyone who has the temerity to call upon their services. *tongue may be in cheek*

It’s that tipping point / cascade of decisions or non-decisions that can end very badly.

My initial reaction reading the reports was ‘numpties’ and though I’m conflicted – and loathe to go down the Daily Heil pitchfork route, I’m at a loss as to what they thought the outcome would be.

Yep slips and trips are the #1 cause in the SMR data for walkers. In other news, the vast majority of cycling incidents are caused by people losing traction and falling over while horse riding accidents tend to be people falling off horses.

It’s totally meaningless as an incident cause.

I’m really just interested why people are making moral judgements about the people rescued off the Ben when the actions themselves seem pretty naive at worst.

. I was making the point that experienced outdoor people do violate rules all the time and potentially are more morally accountable for the ballache they cause.

There are no ‘rules’, there’s stuff that’s usual and there’s stuff that’s not, but it all depends on you and your level of ability, experience, risk assessment etc. The likes of Kilian Jornet quite happily solo up Mont Blanc in what are essentially trainers – not quite, but they look very like them. Alex Honnold solos El Cap quite happily. Alex Macintyre once set out on a hard alpine route carrying his minimal kit in a lightly modified plastic carrier bag.

I wouldn’t do any of those myself and neither would most people, but they’re extreme examples that aren’t really hard and fast rules, just what you as an individual choose to do. If your judgement is poor – or like the tourists on the Ben you basically have no idea of what you’re dealing with – then things tend to go wrong, quite often badly. I’m not saying people should be reckless – tends to be bad for self preservation and potentially puts other people’s safety in jeopardy too – just that it’s a lot more fluid a situation than just following some ticklist of ‘shoulds’ and ‘oughts’. Fwiw, I suspect that most MRT members get that.

YMMV, which is the whole point.

.. this isn’t a very well constructed thought, but maybe we all enjoy the free access to the outdoors, and incidents / rescues like this lead to inevitable knee-jerk calls for regulation / compulsory insurance / training – so it’s seen as a threat to the freedoms we enjoy and appreciate?

I’m really just interested why people are making moral judgements about the people rescued off the Ben when the actions themselves seem pretty naive at worst.

You accused me of doing this when I did not in any way.

Most of the mountain rescue reports I’ve seen suggest slips, trips and stumbles are the main reasons for call outs among experienced hill goers.

Some of the stuff you mentioned might contribute to that but many of the things you mentioned don’t.

This.

kcal

I think its those of us that enjoy the mountains tend to defer to the MRTs view – which is that charging people for callouts is self defeating as explained above. Insurance? At what point do you need it? Arthers seat? Pentlands? winter only? Its not a workable solution

Perhaps a small voluntary levy on outdoor shops selling stuff – ie 1% on the price goes to MR but if you object you can remove it.

.. this isn’t a very well constructed thought, but maybe we all enjoy the free access to the outdoors, and incidents / rescues like this lead to inevitable knee-jerk calls for regulation / compulsory insurance / training – so it’s seen as a threat to the freedoms we enjoy and appreciate?

An element of that, to be sure. We’d mostly rail against compulsory insurance, and how would you enforce it anyway?  Who would have to pay – everyone who left their car? And there’s the risk that by charging folk for rescue they’d delay callout and hence either perish or make the situation for the MRT even more difficult.

These knee-jerk reactions always fade away under the most lightweight scrutiny.

Timely reminder – in Scotland, 3/5 call-outs are funded by charity giving of various types. 1/5 are funded by the Scottish Govt and 1/5 are “funded” by the MRTs themselves. Please consider making a donation if you don’t already.

I’m really just interested why people are making moral judgements about the people rescued off the Ben when the actions themselves seem pretty naive at worst.

I’m not sure people are making moral judgements. I think it’s more of a simple ‘that was a pretty stupid thing to do’ vibe. Personally I’m just thankful that no-one was killed or seriously injured with a side-order of hopefully they won’t make that mistake again.

Mrts have been very clear that they would rather attend a non event and help folk down safely than attend a body recovery

I can’t believe they didn’t read the TripAdvisor reviews before they set off!

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowUserReviews-g186545-d194657-r235166198-Ben_Nevis-Fort_William_Lochaber_Scottish_Highlands_Scotland.html

Maybe an AA style emergency phone box every 100 metres up Ben/snowden would eventually sort this problem out,,,,,

Perp, Hi, I’ve got stuck…..

Operator, have you got boots on ?…

P, No

O, we’ll be with you as soon as we can.

Statement from Lochaber MRT

Thanks to everyone for their messages of support to the Team – very much appreciated. The incident has created a huge…

Posted by Lochaber Mountain Rescue Team on Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Edit- beaten to it 😁

Well said LMRT. Enjoy the dram.

Absolutely agree as above – agree with MRTs views on this.
Not been involved in any call outs but plenty folk I know have been in rescue situations. Always followed by direct contributions at the least.

My dad’s will specified a donation to Torridon MRT, and mum had a corresponding one to Cairngorm.

Nice pic above.

Prob best to close this thread now, after that.

Kudo’s to the MRT. I couldnt do it,I wouldn’t be able to keep my trap shut.

I hear it said that people like this are putting the MRT at risk – but I cannot think of any actual incidents of MRT members being kiled or injured on rescues. Anyone?

Since page 1 the fud and fanny quotient has dropped off dramatically.

I’m all tot heeded now!

That MRT post is spot on. They are truly amazing

One or two tj but have to go a long way back. Police sergeant on Ben More from Killin when helicopter crashed. But can’t think of any direct MRT casualties.

Ta

I think the people in this event would be dead if it wasn’t for their mobiles (specifically the app What3Words).

That bit stood out for me; I’ve seen comments made by various rescue organisations about installing and using this app for emergencies, because it doesn’t rely on the user having any particular map using skills, in particular OS grid references or Lat/Long, which most people really aren’t familiar with, whereas what3words is really easy for anyone to understand and use.
I’d like to see it integrated into a lot more satnav apps and systems, like Google and Apple Maps, TomTom, CoPilot, etc. HereWeGo, formerly just Here uses it, and for some time, I’d noticed when getting locations on my satnav when driving that there were these three random words kept appearing, but I never understood what they meant; I’d never even heard of the system, this was around four years ago, but I can’t help but think if more people were made aware of it, and how easy to use it is, so it becomes fairly ubiquitous it would help resolve situations like this one far more rapidly.

Having just come back to this, I’m man enough to hold my hand up and admit the added dimension of them being naive tourist visitors from abroad has altered my view somewhat (In all honesty, this added scenario did actually occur to me as a possible answer to understand an act of gross stupidity). I’m not sure it completely absolves them from getting a dressing down (seems the MRT are happy to cut them some slack so fair enough), but gives at least some understanding of what, why and how. BTW I’m another who er…studied under John Barry (Alpine Climbing by John Barry, wasn’t aware he did other books so will seek that out)

studied under John Barry (Alpine Climbing by John Barry, wasn’t aware he did other books so will seek that out)

The Snow and Ice climbing one will be pretty out of date in some ways now! It’s got some nice photos and nice stories though.

I’ll just leave this here for now.

Donate today

I hear it said that people like this are putting the MRT at risk – but I cannot think of any actual incidents of MRT members being kiled or injured on rescues. Anyone?

You get daft ones in the detailed call out reports. Eg Call out to woman with broken ankle after slipping on wet grass. Call out MRT member slips on wet grass and breaks ankle during rescue.

From memory – wasn’t there a team of climbers – French possibly – that set out to climb Ben Nevis a couple of years ago in poor avalanche conditions and perished? Again that’s at leats partly unaware of the prevailing local conditions – and how you impart that to folk setting out on the hills.

That was part of the MRT post to be fair, and worth investigating further.

but I cannot think of any actual incidents of MRT members being kiled or injured on rescues. Anyone

I volunteer with Harry’s son still. He just went back up and painted the cross again this year with Harry’s grandson.

Don’t you dare suggest the MRT don’t risk things. I’ve some more incidents if you want, including a couple of acquaintances that have some injuries from MRT work over the years.

Go and read Cairngorm John.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-16821872

I hear it said that people like this are putting the MRT at risk – but I cannot think of any actual incidents of MRT members being killed or injured on rescues. Anyone?

The only one I can think of wasn’t on a rescue but a training exercise – the Cockermouth MRT were practicing lowering a casualty down a crag when the belays failed and a couple were killed. Page 8 of this PDF http://www.cockermouthmrt.org.uk/documents/CMRT_60years.pdf

Re: the whatthreewords app/system. This is somewhat contentious as it’s a closed, proprietary system and the company have a very aggressive legal team. There are also standard systems built in to emergency calls (999, 911, etc.) where the location is automatically sent with the call – Advanced Mobile Location. Android phones have had this since 2016, Apple phones have had it since iOS 11.2 – 2018 or thereabouts.

Specific to the UK (as far as I know) is SARLoc – MRT send you a text, click on the link in the text and your mobile responds with your exact location – again no app required. There’s also OSLocate which is an app – I’ve not used this one so can’t comment on how effective or otherwise it is.

Edit: there was a thread about the w3w system a few months ago.

Bloody stupid drivers etc etc etc

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-51459997

but I can’t help but think if more people were made aware of it, and how easy to use it is, so it becomes fairly ubiquitous it would help resolve situations like this one far more rapidly.

Dont worry Three words are burning through a lot of cash on a very aggressive advertising campaign to get people aware of it. They will then need to recoup that expenditure of course hence why their db is proprietary unlike grid coordinates etc.

To add to the list of MRT members injured whilst involved in rescues – 2003 a member of Kendal MRT has just been winched to a craggy location on the Langdale Pikes when the aircraft rotors struck the crag. As the aircraft pulled away to make an emergency landing in the valley, the team member was knocked over by the winch wire. He fell, and suffered significant injuries.

I did ten years as an MRT member, mostly in a busy team, and four years as a Search Dog Handler. I am struggling to think of more than a handful of incidents where, when you consider the casualties starting point in terms of knowledge and experience, I could honestly think of them as idiots. We all make mistakes in the hills, especially when starting out. Mostly we get away with it, and learn. If you are unlucky, you do not get away with it. In my book, you are only an idiot if you do not learn from your mistakes.

WRT charging for rescue – this really is Daily Mail logic. Most rescues are low down, think “going for a stroll in the countryside” territory. Should we expect everyone who leaves the roadside to be insured? When an incident occurs higher up, do we want casualties to delay calling for help because of the potential bill? The first time (and the would be a first time) someone died as a result of calling for help, the would, quite rightly, be an outcry.

Matt

I didn’t mean to minimise the risk. I was just thinking I could not remember any incident and wondered about how often they come to harm

Of course I understand that they are at risk.

From experience tj, there’s a lot of skill, judgement, kit and good fortune that goes into avoiding accidents.
Minor ones happen all the time (bumps, bruises getting cold etc) it seems.
Major ones, thankfully less so, but all the kit and preparation in the world won’t prevent something major again. We had a SeaKing have an emergency over Tarmachan in 2011(?) with full load of team on board, they basically pointed the thing downhill and *just* made a field in Killin. A very close call. There was no circling, they just got the thing on the ground until repair crew fixed it by the next morning.

MRT guy fell from a sea king helicopter when a rotor struck a crag during a rescue in the Langdales (we saw the damaged helicopter afterwards waiting to be picked up) don’t know what the final outcome was re the guy, but it was very serious, obviously.

Edit : just seen the past above

You cant speak to him like that, he lives in the Highlands don’t you know!?

Yeah yeah I know, think he’s also climbed a couple of Munroes. Might have been three.

Just kidding lol

Since page 1 the fud and fanny quotient has dropped off dramatically.

I’m all tot heeded now!

Watch out, the Scots are marauding again!

As a lighter-hearted flip side to those none-of-the-gear and no-idea lads:

I used to live at the bottom of Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh and we’d often go for a Sunday stroll up it to get some air. Just normal clothes, jeans, trainers whatever. Sometimes we’d take a wee picnic.

And we’d often have a chuckle at the Serious Walkers in Serious Walking Gear: big Goretex jackets, backpacks, walking poles, flasks, stern faces etc which would probably have been quite at home on Nevis in February but looked a bit odd on a wee inner city hill, with paved paths, in June. 😃