Skilled, brave, unpaid: Hill heroes risk all yet remain an enigma
I have never had to be rescued but have had quiteafew close calls over the years.
It has made me very aware of how all of us climbers and walkers might well need the help of a Mountain Rescue Team and, indeed, may owe our lives to their skill, stamina and courage.
Although frequently in the news, Mountain Rescue Teams are not well understood. Surprisingly, few people know the rescuers are unpaid or that they achieve, to put it in John Allen’s words, “the most professional standards possible within an amateur ethos”.
Why, then, do they require such large sums to function, and where does the money come from? Likewise their relationships with other, full-time, emergency services are not well understood.
Few, even among mountain enthusiasts, know they act on behalf of the police and that it is the team leaders who co-ordinate all aspects, including the use of helicopters.
One of the least understood groups to go to the hills, the mountain rescuers are an enigma to the general public, who all too often label them simply as heroes.
No dedicated rescuer feels this way. Nor do they see the casualties, as the public too often does, as feckless and foolish.
John Allen does much to explain the motivations of both, the trials the rescuers put themselves through to come to the assistance of others, and the crafts and science developed through their work over the past half-century.
Often the rescuers are required to meet and work with people during the worst experience of their life, experience that will alter their futures utterly.
Sometimes they have to deal with people in what will be the last few hours of their lives.
Relationships are developed, grief is shared and, sometimes, long friendships are established.