Mountain Rescue
We are extremely lucky in the UK to have Mountain Rescue Teams. These are volunteer teams made up of ordinary people, giving up their time, to help in searching & rescuing missing or injured people, often in our mountainous areas or wilderness environments. These teams are available 365 days a year 24 hours a day and will go out in some pretty awful conditions all year round.
In Scotland alone, there are around 850 volunteers across 25 teams, all giving up their time, their beds, abandoning work and being called away from their families to assist total strangers.
How Do I contact Mountain Rescue?
Call 999 (or text 999) and ask for the Police, then Mountain Rescue. You do not speak directly to Mountain Rescue (unless they subsequently contact you), so you will need to pass as much useful information on to the Police as possible including;
Name & group details (plus contact numbers) - are you alone or out with others.
Location, ideally a British Grid Reference [Read how to take a grid reference & the free app OS Locate]
If there are casualties, how many?
What is wrong with casualty?
Are casualties deteriorating?
Details of equipment in the group i.e Group shelter, blizzard bag [ See our Recommended Kit List]
How long will it take for help to arrive?
Callouts can take multiple hours… It will always vary depending on where you are, the terrain and ground you are on and access to that area and the weather. Volunteers are not in an office waiting for call-outs; they will often be working, out and about or even sleeping.
Once you have passed on information to the Police, they will contact a Team lead in the appropriate Mountain Rescue Team, who will then contact the team. This can be for those team members available to meet at base or at a nearby location, such as the bottom of the relevant mountain. Once they have met and reached the base of the mountain, they then need to reach your location. If you’ve walked in 2 hours, they may need 2 hours as well as they will be fully loaded backpacks and extra equipment. They may be able to utilise a 4x4 vehicle for part of the journey to your location to speed this up or even the search and rescue helicopter in some cases. However, this is not always the case and will depend on the circumstances of the rescue.
All in all, this can therefore take quite a while and you can often get very cold in this time, even in the middle of summer. This is why we suggest taking some spare kit on every walk. Check out our Kit List for ideas of what you should carry on your walks.
donate & Find out more
Every team relies on public donations to provide them with training, insurance and the equipment they need. Check out the websites below or visit individual teams’ websites & their Facebook pages if you prefer to give directly to a specific team.