That is correct. How do I know? We were recently in the (un)fortunate situation of needing to activate our SPOT for another group that got themselves in trouble - they had just triggered an avalanche, with one member of the group going for a good ride and sustaining serious injury.
That group asked us to use our SPOT to call 911 for them, so we got a good first-hand look at what goes on when you activate it. It was a good learning experience and is probably worth sharing here, so here goes….
As mentioned above, when you hit the 911 button, it alerts the SPOT call centre in Texas. They will then call the contact people listed on that account. In this case it was my husband and I - but because we were out of cell range we couldn't receive the call. (We are still unclear if they contacted our emergency contacts - the ones listed on our account were (thankfully!) out of town with their voicemail turned off.)
The SPOT people will then contact the local RCMP - but we don't know how. There is no service agreement with eComm and we're not sure if it goes through the PEP, or they just look at where the signal is and call directly to the local detachment.
The RCMP in turn call out the appropriate SAR team.
It's important to note that when SAR is mobilizing for a SPOT call - they have no idea what they are responding to! All they have is a location, but no information on the nature of the incident. It is therefore very challenging for them to prepare appropriately.
If you can follow-up with a 911 phone call to provide more information to SAR - do it! In our case, we were out of cell range, but sent 2 skiers out to drive back and make that 911 call once they were back in range.
Make it clear to the 911 operator that you want to be dispatched to the RCMP (they dispatched us to ambulance initially - who are not 'connected' to RCMP - so there was no record of our SPOT call). Then make sure RCMP (and in turn SAR) know that you are calling about the SPOT signal so they don't think there are 2 different incidents they need to respond to.
SAR asked us to drive to their local station where they requested assistance pin-pointing on Google Earth exactly where the incident was. Even though they had the coordinates from the SPOT, they wanted reconfirmation that it was accurate. Apparently there have been cases where the signal was off. SAR also wanted to know whether there was an appropriate place to land the chopper, how long it would take to access the area by skinning in, could it be accessed by sled etc.
Please give this a think for a second in case you ever need SAR. When you are 'out there' can you and EVERYONE in your group answer those questions? Could you pinpoint on a map and/or Google Earth exactly where the incident occurred?
It took about 3.5 hours from the time we activated the 911 on the SPOT until SAR was mobilized. I mention that ONLY to highlight just how long it will take for help to reach you in the back-country in the case of an emergency. Having a SPOT is not a replacement for proper planning or responsible travel, it is just one extra tool that may help you mobilize help a bit faster.
Props and thank-you once again to SAR. We're hoping this was the only time we'll ever need to interact with you guys.
Not sure if that helps anyone's decision to purchase a SPOT or not, but that's how it works if you need it.
Play safe!
Quoting Mrs. Gurstin's post as anyone with a Spot likely needs a refresher on what actually happens when you put the "send help" button.
Thanks for taking the time to write up the incident report.
