Thread: For Those Who Have Used Your PLB

Originally Posted by Moutere

Although I’ve never had cause to set off my own beacon, I’m one of the people that responds when you do. We can easily get a couple of beacons per shift in our high summer season so we’ve seen everything from simple panic and broken bones, to dead bodies. That’s the reason I often post on these beacon threads as I feel I have a bit of skin in the game to offer. Although there has been a historic poor understanding by the general public about what their beacons can and can’t do, this is getting better. Interestingly hunters seem to make up a noticeably low percentage of our beacon missions, I assume this is a mixture of stoicism, preparedness and high self reliance.

These two points so far are great takeaways.





I would also add:
If you require help, do it a soon as you reach that decision. Helicopter minimas typically quadruple at night, so getting on location during daylight is far more reliable for you (and safer for us) than trying to do it at night if there is weather. There is a real witching hour leading into last light, often for emergencies that may have occurred in the afternoon.
On the flip side of that, some people will try and make far too many decisions on our behalf that delay help. An example, we picked up two extremely hypothermic trampers recently whom waited until first light before setting off their beacon. We could have gotten them off the hill hours earlier in the dark had we known, or gotten a Land SAR crew close to them had the front been still yet to pass. Also of note here, poor decision making and cold often go hand in hand in my experience. Hopefully neither of them has ongoing health problems from being so critically cold for so long, this relates to Joe_90 point above about living with your health outcomes from treatment delays.

Thanks, your post clarified a question I’ve often asked myself and that’s when to push the button. Don’t wait till an hour or two before daybreak or a gap in the weather if you’re thinking that is not immediately life threatening. You have no idea what’s ahead in the next 10-12 hours that you’re waiting for, and that the final decisions on when and how are ultimately up to the rescue crews. You may cost them a valuable rescue window, day or night. It’s what they’re trained to do so put your trust in them to make the right and proper decisions.