Imager...

I'm both a Safety Officer for an Air Ambulance program and active as a volunteer in Search and Rescue, so yes, I certainly err on the side of safety. When it comes to SAR work, the main reason I take a very conservative attitude is because there are lots of folks like myself who feel obligated to do SAR work, and we do it because we play in the wilderness and never know when we ourselves might need assistance. If there is an organized SAR team (whether wilderness or urban), and someone is reported missing or in need of rescue, we can't say "nah, let Darwin win on this one." Individually we may choose to go or not go, but there will always be a core of people who will go because someone needs help and nobody else is going to do it. So, it kind of pisses us off to go after people who got themselves in over their heads in an environment that is very risky for us. It is one thing to get lost in the woods, another thing entirely to fall off a cliff and land in an area where a helo can't land (i.e. requiring technical rescue and extended carry-out). So, mentally, going in after an experience hiker, climber or hunter who ran into bad luck is entirely different than going in after a yahoo who got talked into doing something they weren't prepared for. By the way, we do ALOT of body recoveries.

MNS