I agree with what others have said. I would like to add that "risk to life or limb" is the criteria we use to determine whether a patient needs an emergent rescue or can wait out a delay. It sounds like risk to limb was a possibility in this scenario, so using a PLB would have been appropriate. Without an x-ray it can be hard to tell exactly how bad an injury is. In the field pretty much all you have are distal pulses... If they are diminished on the injury side compared to the non-injured side then you may have circulatory compromise, which could lead to loss of bone and tissue.

I have been processing the news of the death of an old friend of mine on Rainier in June 2011 that I only learned of a couple weeks ago. In reading the accident reports and follow-up it has been suggested that his death might have been prevented had his team had a signaling device. When he was unable to continue his partners had to leave him high on Liberty Ridge while they continued on nearly 12 hours to get help. When help was finally able to access his location, he was gone. Somehow his anchor had come undone and he tumbled 2,000 feet down the mountain. If his team had been in possession of a signaling device they wouldn't have had to leave him alone on the mountain. Since his body was unrecoverable, we will never know if he was alive or dead when he fell (he may have suffered a fatal health crisis that would have occurred regardless), so it is impossible to rule out the possibility that he may have survived had rescue been initiated when he fell ill initially (which is what prevented him from being able to continue). The park service was already on standby for a rescue because the team was overdue and bad weather was coming in. I have no idea why experienced climbers would have not carried a signaling device on such a risky route. Only the surviving members of the team can answer that, and AFAIK they have not given a public explanation.