Dragon's Wrath 2014

Another rescue:
www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Injured-hiker-rescued-in-Drakensberg-20140503

At about 12:45 on 28 April a lady in our party broke her right fibula while traversing high on the south-facing slope just North of Rat Hole Cave in the Mnweni area. Two of us hiked about 2km to the escarpment before we got cellphone signal. During this time the medical people in our party (vet, dentist, fisio, pharmacologist) attended to her. MSAR referred us to the SAPS SAR division. We found that some of the hikers in our party had cellphone signal on roaming (very, very useful. Much better than a dual-sim Vodacom/MTN phone in this case.) A red cross heli was dispatched, since we gave them GPS coordinates and our altitude of about 3000m.

Meanwhile, we sent down the rest of the party to camp at the stream, while 5 men stayed behind to carry the stretcher. A pilot in our party identified a suitable landing area which we cleared of stones, about 50m from the patient. At roughly 16:45 we saw the helicopter. We had a 3-man red tent flysheet glowing and waving in the sun, but the heli didn’t see us for quite a while, flying directly over us numerous times. Judging from the cellphone photo taken by the paramedic, we were actually difficult to see. (MSAR recommends a signaling mirror. I’m also considering my star laser pointer). Eventually they saw the blue and yellow Isodome tent we erected next to the patient. We were in contact with the control room, but they were not in contact with the pilot. An airband radio would have been useful. 15 min later the heli flew away to our dismay, and we prepared to spend the night on the slope. The control room contacted us and told us that the aircraft was at its operating ceiling, and that we were higher than 3000ft (!). Because of this it had no extra power for takeoff and landing. I mention this not to knock anyone, but just to illustrate that we may take things such as altitude for granted, but they should be made very explicit in an emergency situation.

Half an hour later the heli was back, having dropped extra gear and paramedics, and landed at 17:45 with one paramedic. We stretchered her in very quickly (another not-so-simple exercise on steep and rocky ground), and they were off while there was still some sun on Mponjwane. Because we had her medical aid details with us, they were able to take her to a private hospital for surgery where she received a plate and some screws. MSAR representatives were there when the ambulance doors opened. As these things go, we could not have asked for better conditions: we had perfect weather, a not-so-serious injury, lots of extra hands, medically trained people, cellphone signal, etc. If any of those factors were different, the situation would have been much more serious.

It was the AMS heli which is normally used as a ambulance for car accidents etc. I think a Bell 407. An Oryx was not available that day. I see they posted a short article on their site:

www.ams.org.za/newsroom/news/durban-rotor-wing-mountain-rescue-magaliesburg

I was reading an article about the new Swiss choppers with turbines which can land on the summit of Everest now. They have a couple in Nepal now. A French pilot did a brief landing on the summit of Everest but a Nepalese pilot crashed and died trying to rescue climbers off Ama Dablam. I think his rotor touched the mountain..