Safety & Emergency Response · 7 min
Evacuation and calling for help
Why this matters
The decision to evacuate, and how, is the guide's decision alone. Get it wrong in one direction and you turn a walk-out into a carry-out. Get it wrong in the other and you commit a dozen rescuers to a night operation for a sprain.
By the end of this lesson you will be able to
- Choose between self-evacuation, assisted walk-out and calling for help
- Give a clear report to Forest Ranger dispatch
- Explain what to expect from a backcountry rescue in New York
The three options
| Option | When | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Walk out unaided | Minor injury or illness, patient stable and improving, terrain and daylight allow | Deterioration. Reassess at every break. Lighten their pack |
| Assisted walk-out | Patient mobile with support: poles, a shoulder, a taped ankle | Time. An assisted walk-out is often three or four times slower than the trip in |
| Call for help | Unable to walk, altered mental status, chest pain, breathing trouble, severe bleeding, suspected spinal injury, hypothermia beyond mild, or the situation is beyond your resources | Delay. Calling late is far more common than calling early |
A carry is not a plan. Moving a non-ambulatory adult through Adirondack terrain takes something like six to eight trained people per mile per hour, and often more. If a client cannot walk, you are calling, not carrying.
Making the call
DEC Forest Ranger dispatch: 1-833-NYS-RANGERS (1-833-697-7264). 911 also works and routes to them. Have this ready before you dial:
- Location. Coordinates with the system named, plus a plain description: trail, distance from which trailhead, nearest landmark
- The patient. Age, sex, what happened, what you found, vitals, what you have done
- The party. How many, their condition, what gear and shelter you have
- Weather and terrain where you are, and whether a helicopter could land nearby
- Your callback, and how long your battery will last
Then stay where you are unless you agree otherwise with dispatch, keep the phone on and warm, and do not move the patient after giving a position.
What to expect
Forest Rangers are the primary backcountry search and rescue resource on State land in New York, and they are very good. They are also spread across an enormous area. From the call to boots at the patient is commonly several hours, sometimes longer at night, in bad weather, or deep in the backcountry. Air support depends on weather, daylight and a place to hoist or land.
Which means the guide's job after the call is not waiting. It is keeping everyone, patient included, alive and warm for the length of that wait: shelter up, insulation down, food and hot drink, headlamps and a signal ready, jobs assigned. Plan for a night out and be pleasantly surprised.
Afterwards
- Write the incident up the same day, while times and details are accurate
- Notify your outfitter and your insurer per their procedures
- Check on the rest of the party. Witnesses to a serious incident often take it harder than the patient
- Debrief yourself honestly: what would have prevented it, and what will you change
From the field
Client with a deformed lower leg, three miles in, 16:00, October. You do not attempt a carry with four untrained clients over blowdown in fading light. You splint, insulate, call, give a coordinate and a landmark, and set the party up for a five-hour wait with the tarp and the stove. That is the right answer even though it feels passive.
This lesson is part of the NYS Licensed Guide Exam course. Open it in the course to answer the retrieval checks that go with it, track what you have read, and quiz the whole unit. Lessons, quizzes and the glossary are free.