I plucked this little quote from the MountainProject thread on the fall video that was posted here recently:
It's this attitude that gets rescues hurt or killed every year IMO. My friend has a serious skiing accident and had to get SAR. The SAR team consisted of the small town local sheriff and some volunteers. They brought snowmobiles which couldn't get up the thin snow and trees.Then were forced to posthole thigh deep snow because they couldn't borrow flotation before starting the "rescue" This is after repeatedly needing directions to get to a very well known trailhead and not being able to use the GPS coordinates.While their effort to help was respectable they really weren't equipped to deal with the situation and were surprised when the helicopter couldn't pick them off too... They eventually had to turn around because they didn't have overnight equipment to survive the storm.
If you think it's the A team coming to get you... I'm sorry but you're gonna be let down.
It mildly surprised me, I suppose because it's easy to forget that the UK has some fantastic, competent and professional (in attitude rather than status) MR members and MR teams, and from what I gather the 'service' is rarely short of excellent. I'm interested in hearing what everyone's experience of MR has been in the various other corners of the world. I understand that not everywhere can have a great rescue service on call 24h, and not everywhere needs that. Not looking to take a dig at anyone, just curious as to what the situation is around the world.
I only have personal experience of the PGHM in Chamonix, who I can confirm are both incredible and incredibly funny and cheerful people.