Pictured: a Garmin InReach Mini
Emergency SOS devices that connect to satellites.
Sometimes on an extended trip, bad things happen. REALLY BAD things happen. Sometimes, emergency air evacuation from your remote location is the better part of valor, and you ain’t gonna get outa this by yourself.
In times past, sometimes you would end up in Sh:t Creek without a paddle. Well, sometimes that still happens, especially if you haven’t brought along a spare paddle. But you would never do that, right?
I recall the story from the Boundary Waters about “Fried Fred.” Who was happily guiding a troop of Boy Scouts on a two-week excursion when he unluckily got hit by lightning while a week out from Charles L. Sommers Base Camp. The Scout Troop had no way of communicating with the base camp, and had to bundle their dead guide up, and carry him back to the base for the next week.
But these days, thanks to the Iridium Satellite Network, and the magic of microminiaturized electronics, there are a number of electronic emergency satellite communicators for us to use on our trips.
An assortment of emergency satellite communicators, from an article by outdoorgearlab.com.
Garmin has several offerings, from the Garmin inReach Mini, to the Messenger, to the Explorer to the GPSMap. I carry an InReach Mini.
ACR has a “Bivy Stick.” Zoleo has a “Satellite Communicator.” Somewear has a “Global Hotspot.” Spot has a “Spot X.”
All of these require an active subscription to their service in order to be used. There are a variety of subscription plans and service options. Most of these devices need to be paired with a smart phone in order to easily send or receive text messages or see maps and locations. We pay a $35 annual subscription fee, and then “park” or suspend the subscription until we plan on going into the backcountry, when we open the subscription on a monthly basis for about $30 per month. The subscription plans are always changing and confusing.
We also pay extra for “SAR (Search and Rescue) Rescue Insurance,” to pay for helicopter rescue and possible hospital costs, if necessary. The devices and subscriptions are only for the communication abilities.
Some of these devices are purely for emergency use only, but more and more, most of them are adding the capability to send and receive simple text messages through their satellite system.
The Garmin GPSMAP is large enough to provide a readable map on its own screen, whereas the Garmin Mini requires it to be paired with a smart phone and use the smart phone screen to show a map.
The supplementary SAR Rescue Insurance is relatively reasonable at about $35 per year, for up to $100,000 in rescue and medical costs. Additionally, many volunteer SAR groups do not charge for their searches or rescues. So, for instance, a several day search, and manual rescue of an injured person might not cost anything, but once at the trailhead, the 15-minute ambulance ride and an overnight at the hospital might cost $25,000. Some helicopter rescues come at no cost, but some might cost up to $100,000 depending on the organization that sponsors the helicopter.
When you use your satellite communication device, the signal goes from the gadget to one of the hundreds of Iridium satellites orbiting the Earth, and then gets sent to the satellite response center for the organization, somewhere on Earth. In the United States, for Garmin, their emergency response center is located in Montgomery, Texas.
If the communication is an ordinary text message, the automatic equipment at the center will route the message through the normal cell phone network and the message will get delivered in due course. Realize, however, that the “normal cell phone network” text message system relies on a third-party corporation, and their legal agreements allow them THREE DAYS to deliver a text message. I used to work for Sprint and had to explain this over and over when people called up to complain that their text messages weren’t getting delivered. TEXT MESSAGING IS NOT AN IMMEDIATE DIRECT CONNECTION. It gets sent through a third-party corporation. It is not like a telephone connection that is direct and immediate. Boyfriend and girlfriend relationships were destroyed all the time because the text messages weren’t delivered immediately. Sigh.
I am only familiar with the Garmin organization response, but most of the other emergency device organizations have similar response structures in place. In the case of an emergency, if the SOS button is pushed, a live human intercepts the message and attempts to determine the location of the emergency, and which local emergency response organizations are active for that area, such as local County Sheriffs, local SAR teams, local National and State Park organizations and so on. They will send a message back to the device and ask for confirmation and more information and keep two-way messaging with the user. They also call the emergency contacts listed in the user’s profile, informing them of the ongoing situation.
If possible, the Garmin Response team will connect the local rescue agency directly to the user so the user and the local agency can take it from there. So, the local agency and the user can text back and forth.
This process does take some time, so if there is an immediate emergency, such as a heart attack, or someone bleeding out, for instance, this emergency response may not happen in time to remedy the situation. For immediate responses, you would have to look into a satellite phone, and their subscription plans, which are substantially more expensive.
A couple of notes about the Garmin InReach Mini that I use. At one point, the battery did die out, and left me with no communication, so it is important to have a supplementary battery pack. It is ruggedized, so it can get banged around, and the SOS button is hidden behind a compartment so you can’t trigger an SOS by mistake, but I’ve heard of a situation where it got wet, and somehow that triggered it to send SOS messages to the response center repeatedly, causing serious activity around a hiker that did not need rescue, and was unaware that her Mini was sending out dire emergency announcements.
Also, at one point, my cell phone battery died, and while the Mini still had battery, and was connected to the network, it couldn’t connect to any new phone numbers that it hadn’t already contacted. When the phone still had battery, the Mini could send a text message to any phone number in my cell phone contact list, but once my phone died, it couldn’t recognize any new phone numbers it hadn’t already contacted. Also, once your phone dies, you can no longer use the map activity of the Mini.
In one instance I know of, we were paddling down the Pecos, and a helicopter buzzed our camp and asked if we needed to be rescued or had called for a rescue. It turned out to be another group along the Pecos, and one of their paddlers had dropped a boat on their ankle and broken their ankle and had called for rescue. So that “call for rescue,” at least, didn’t have location information.
In the rescue Terry and I were involved in. Terry had broken a bone in her foot and couldn’t walk down the mountain we were on, in the wilderness in California. After several attempts and lots of crying and talking and regrets about not being able to continue, she pushed the SOS button at around 9 am in the morning. We got a text acknowledgement soon after, but it was brief and not very informative. At about 10, we got a further text message with more information that they had contacted the local authorities and the local County Sheriff would be sending help. We also got a text message from the local SAR coordinator. At about Noon, we heard a helicopter coming up the mountainside toward us, and as it got close enough to identify, it was from the local Sheriff’s office. Unfortunately, it was so windy, they could not land, nor drop any supplies to us, and after trying to land for about 45 minutes, they retreated, and texted that they needed to send a rescue SAR team on foot. This team needed to be assembled, and then begin the 8,000-foot, 7-mile ascent from the nearest trailhead, while carrying their gear, food and water, and a disassembled wheeled gurney to carry Terry back down the mountain. Five (5) members of the China Lake Mountain Rescue Group (Eternal thanks to the CLMRG!) showed up around 5 pm, as the Sun started going down, bundled Terry into her sleeping bag, strapped her into the wheeled gurney, and started back down the mountain. Along the way, they were met by other members of the local SAR teams, and by the time they reached the trailhead again, they had assembled about 20 members that were helping in the rescue. They reached the trailhead around midnight, and generously took Terry to one of their homes, as she didn’t need immediate hospital care.
So, from the time that Terry pushed the SOS button, it took an hour to get continual connection with a local SAR contact. It took 3 hours for a helicopter to arrive, only to discover it could not land, and they needed to send a rescue team on foot. It took 8 hours for the rescue team to arrive. And then it took another 7 hours to get Terry back down to the trailhead.
Other than the subscription, our costs for the rescue were ZERO. The CLMRG did not charge for the rescue or taking Terry down the mountain or the overnight stay at their home. The Sheriff did not charge for the failed attempt at the helicopter rescue. Terry did follow up with a hospital visit but arranged with her insurance to have them pay for it.
Your situation and distances might vary, but it may not be a quick or expeditious rescue. But it sure beats dying by yourself with no other recourse.
Stay safe out there.
See you On The Water!
Harmon