Calling for help: what rescuers actually need to hear

At some point you may have to call for help — for yourself, or for someone you are with, or for a stranger. The call itself is a skill, and it is one of the few emergency skills you can rehearse for free right now.

The order that matters

Rescue coordinators want the same things in roughly the same order, and giving them in that order is what stops the call becoming an interview.

Location. First, always, before anything else, because if the call drops that is the one thing that lets them act. Coordinates if you have them — read them slowly and read them twice. Plus a plain description: which valley, which face, which side of the river, how far from a recognisable feature.

Nature of the emergency. One sentence. "Climber fallen roughly ten metres, unconscious." "Skier caught in avalanche, buried, now extracted, breathing."

Number of people involved and how many are injured.

Casualty condition. Conscious or not. Breathing or not. Major bleeding. Suspected spinal or head injury. Whether they can walk.

Your details. Names, callback number, what you are wearing — colours matter enormously from a helicopter.

Conditions on scene. Weather, wind, cloud base, visibility, terrain, whether there is a landing area, whether there is ongoing hazard such as rockfall or avalanche risk.

What you are doing and what you have — shelter, insulation, medical training, how long you can hold your position.

Location, in more detail, because it is everything

Most phones will give a grid reference or latitude and longitude from a mapping app, and there are dedicated apps designed for exactly this that display a location in the formats emergency services use. Know how to get that from your phone before you need it. Practise it on a walk.

Coordinates alone are not enough in mountain terrain. A helicopter crew needs to find you visually, and a grid reference on a big face still leaves a lot of face. Add: which gully, how far above the treeline, distinctive features nearby, and what you will do to be visible.

If you are moving, say so, and say where you are going. Otherwise stay put — a moving casualty party is dramatically harder to find, and searches have failed because a group descended a different valley after making the call.

Communication tools, honestly

Mobile phone. Better coverage than people assume on ridges and summits, far worse in valleys and gullies. An emergency call may connect through any available network, not only your own. A text uses far less signal than a voice call and will often get through when a call will not.

Conserve battery ruthlessly from the moment of the incident. Aeroplane mode between attempts, screen dark, keep the phone warm inside a jacket because cold destroys battery capacity.

Satellite messengers. The single most significant change in backcountry safety in the past couple of decades. Two-way messaging means the coordinator can ask questions and you can answer, which transforms the quality of the response compared with a bare distress beacon. Some phones now include satellite emergency messaging directly.

Personal locator beacons. One-way, extremely reliable, no subscription in many jurisdictions, long battery life. They transmit a distress signal and your position and nothing else. Excellent as a last resort, poor at conveying that you need a stretcher rather than a search.

Whistle and torch. Six blasts a minute, repeated. Free, weightless, works when electronics have died, and genuinely how people are located at close range in poor visibility.

Do not hang up

Stay on the line until you are told to end the call. The coordinator will be asking questions while a team is being assembled, and the information you give in the following minutes shapes what that team brings.

Keep the line free afterwards. Do not start calling family; that ties up the number the rescue service will call back on.

While you wait

Insulate the casualty from the ground and the wind. Hypothermia complicates almost every mountain incident, and it develops in people who are lying still even in mild conditions.

Make yourselves visible: bright clothing spread out, a head torch on strobe after dark, a group bunched at the casualty rather than scattered.

If a helicopter approaches, secure everything loose — the downwash is stronger than most people expect and it turns packs and jackets into projectiles. Stand still, in the open, and let the crew direct you. Do not approach the aircraft.

Rehearse the call

Say it out loud on your next trip, to a friend, as a game. Where are we, exactly, right now, in coordinates? What would I say first? Where is the nearest place a helicopter could land?

Two minutes of that, occasionally, is worth more than most of the equipment in your pack.