Covid to one side for a moment. A sad story to read at any time.
No one sets out on a walk, if they think they are going to get in serious difficulty, though some show very poor judgement of risk. No one makes a volunteer climb a mountain to rescue someone else either. The MRT do generally show far better judgement of risk though, but no one gets it right all the time.
Covid back in the picture. The two walkers were in breach of current law and fined for that.
My thoughts are with both i'll parties.
The MRT reps have already said it, a totally needless rescue. Volunteer SAR will always have a selfless streak and this can get you into trouble, however I do question whether 'show far better judgement of risk' with respect to the volunteer is the correct phrasing here.
The fact is that ordinarily that rescuer would have shown that better judgement by being at home (where they were). However instead they answered the callout despite knowing they'd likely be out on the fells at 2am, moving by head torch and dealing with sleep deprivation whilst moving in steep terrain - because they wanted to help someone who had chest pains who shouldn't have been there. You accept through years of experience that you can mitigate the risk but no callout is risk-free - and these campers choosing to do what they did has caused multiple dozens of people to incur these risks. The fact that the initial injured party has had three heart attacks in 3.5 years yet still decided to climb fells in winter and camp up there absolutely beggars belief, particularly considering cold conditions will have caused his heart to be working overtime. Considering this dubious decision making it does make me wonder whether he had his medication with him, or was he drinking prior to the incident. This speculating is useless on here but I'm sure the debrief will be going into these types of questions.
For those who say 'if you take Covid out of the picture' then they would have been there anyway and it would have gone the same way - I disagree. MR responses have altered significantly during Covid and often vehicles are dispatched with minimal team members, the overall response is scaled back and some people on the teams (in particular healthcare professionals) have been exposed to Covid and need to isolate - putting greater strain on those team members who do turn out as well as sometimes heavily loading those with equipment. For example carrying a stretcher, oxygen bag and your personal winter rucksack + rope at the same time represents a good 70-90lbs.
This photo is looking down the eastern side of Red Screes to the Kirkstone Pass. Definitely the kind of terrain that at 2-3am, laden, is obviously going to be challenging.
There is also the 'cause and effect' discussion around Covid working the other way - perhaps the two campers would have called the rescue team earlier rather than being indecisive due to lockdown rule breaking? Perhaps this could have influenced the conditions on the ground so that the accident may have been avoided? Considering this rescue involved something near 100 people (3 rescue teams, 1 helicopter, 1 road ambulance, police, hospital staff and significant covid transmission risk doing stretcher carries - my overall feeling is how needless this was.
As to the initial injured party in question, I wish him a full recovery and hope he takes some time to contemplate his decisions. There was mention of dealing with depression and I hope he gets over this, enjoys his life and lives it to the full as a testament to the opportunity he now has, in part thanks to the rescuer who is now severely limited in his own enjoyment of life.
