Risk Management Corner: July 2024 - When should an emergency contact call 9-1-1?

Incident Report Summary

Subject: TCS Grad Trip - 7/4/2024

Chief Education Officer: Stacey Halvorsen

Date and Time of Incident: 7/4/24, 9:20 PM

Location: Mt Sahale, Washington

Summary of Events:

• At 9:20 PM, the Chief Education Officer received a call from Answer United regarding Person 1, who was concerned as she had not received an expected call from her sister, Person 2, who was on a TCS grad trip.
• At 9:27 PM, the Chief Education Officer contacted the CMC Education Director, who attempted to reach members of the trip and monitored the TCS Slack channel for updates.
• At 9:32 PM, the Chief Education Officer spoke with Person 1 for more details. Person 1 mentioned they were on Mt. Sahale and had tried contacting the group via InReach without success. Person 1 also contacted the Sheriff and 911 but had difficulty getting responses.
• The Sheriff informed Person 1 that no action would be taken that evening due to the remote location and the group's access to satellite services. A helicopter might be sent the next day if necessary.
• At 10:01 PM, the CMC Education Director informed the Chief Education Officer that he had reached members of the group, Person 3 and Person 4, but Person 5's InReach was off.
• At 10:09 PM, Person 1 received a message from Person 6 on the trip confirming the group was safe.
• At 10:31 PM, Person 1 confirmed with the Chief Education Officer that she had notified the Sheriff to call off the search.

Issues Identified:

• Communication breakdown: Person 2 did not contact her sister Person 1, leading to an emergency response activation.
• Person 5's InReach device was turned off, hindering communication.

Resolution:

• The group was confirmed safe, and the emergency search was called off.

Follow-up:

• Ensure InReach devices are operational and regularly checked.
• Improve communication protocols for trip participants to avoid similar incidents in the future.

Post Trip Comments / Observations from Rich McAdams: School Director of CMC's Backcountry Incident Management School :

1. Although this trip ended well, the CMC should look at this as if had a more serious outcome and put in place protocols for future outings.  The trip does not need to be a high altitude climb, it could be a bike trip through Europe, or a hiking trip in southern Arizona.
2. Once a call has been placed to the central CMC emergency center, the CMC should take ownership from that point on.  Asking the "family" to contact the local sheriff or park rangers can complicate determining status.  Family may not know who, where, or what so (possibly) they start shooting from the hip calling all sorts of emergency services.  Then, assuming a good outcome, does anyone circle back to those emergency services to close out the call?
3. As part of a Trip Plan filed with the CMC, there should be contact info for all team members (phone, email, text), as well as contact info for any support services (e.g., guides, outfitters, tour organizers) that trip intends to utilize.  If the team has satellite messengers (e.g., Garmin InReach) then contact info for those devices should be included as well as who would be the local sheriff for the destination in question.  And (as Keith mentioned), include vehicle descriptions, license plate numbers, and TH parking locations.
4. Perhaps it should be encouraged that team members have their satellite messengers turned on, or at least on at predetermined times.  
    
   In an emergency situation there should be (mostly) a single point of contact.  The local SAR team will identify their poc for the rescue, the sheriff's office will/should have theirs, and the CMC should have a poc for the family and local media.  You can imagine the potential confusion if everyone is calling everyone for updates and status.  And, as an obvious comment, when the poc goes offline and a replacement comes on board, that personnel change should be communicated.
5. In terms of when to initiate that first call, yes, there are loose guidelines, but there are variables which make "wait until daylight tomorrow" not always a good rule of thumb.  If there has always been an unwavering agreement between family members that contact will be made at such-and-such time... but in this case it did not happen, then family making that initial call to the CMC can be the right thing to do.  Of course the anticipated weather and available team gear can also influence whether a rescue should initiate quickly or wait until morning.
6. My experience is that it is better to be proactive and make that first call early (e.g., as a heads-up to 911), then wait until conditions have gotten worse.  First responders don't mind having to ultimately stand-down... false alarm... problem self-resolved, then to get that initial call late in the evening.
7. Philosophically, trip leaders should be responsible to regularly monitor the health and wellbeing of their trip participants.  I was part of a CMC high altitude trip where no effort was made to perform a health check on a tent-bound member.  "He's just not feeling well" should not be the end of the conversation but instead that a Patient Assessment should be initiated.  On my trip we never identified a first-aid poc.  As the condition of our patient became worse it was finally diagnosed by a EMT from another team.  The diagnosis?  Our patient (a CMC member) was near death with a 55% blood oxygen level and needed to be evac'ed immediately.
8. Trip leaders spend a good deal of time working with their participants on physical conditioning, technical skills, trip logistics, itinerary, etc., but don't really consider having team discussions or practice sessions in the event of an emergency or if a health crisis were to crop up.  I think that this responsibility should be a more apparent consideration for future outings.  Although the first-aid role (and those health checks) can be delegated, it does need to be considered a serious responsibility.