When calls for help hit trouble

By GRAHAM REID

The device which could save your life when you are limping around in damp, dense bush or watching water pour over the stern of your runabout costs about what the average teenager would spend on a cellphone.

Or you could - and increasing numbers are doing so - simply carry a cellphone.

But as search and rescue people will tell you, although they are seeing the increased use of cellphones in rescues, they can be unreliable and aren't much use if they are dropped into that rising tide of water in the bottom of the boat.

"There's an unrealistic feeling of confidence that people have," says John Cowan, executive director of Auckland Coastguard. "They think if they've got the phone they're okay. But they can easily fall out of your pocket into the water at the bottom of the boat or overboard."

Not to mention batteries running down or being out of range. And by definition people who putter out to sea or tramp into the bush are doing it to be out of range.

While cellphones - which feature in around 30 per cent of calls to Auckland Coastguard rescues - are a useful aid, the real lifesaver is a GPS (Global Position Satellite) which can cost as little as $400. They are cheaper than some cellphones and about the same price as a VHF (very high frequency) marine radio which maritime authorities say is essential.

Four women trampers from Whangamata who spent an uncomfortable night in the bush in the Coromandel Forest Park this week had a cellphone on which they were able to say they were lost, although they could not be located until the following morning.

Hamilton Search and Rescue adviser Ashley Shaw said the cellphone had been a "hell of a psychological boost", as it enabled the women to contact their families and the police. They also had a GPS device but were inexperienced in using it and the signal was being blocked by dense bush and gullies.

"Cellphones are wonderful and we recommend them as a secondary means of communication for people on boats behind marine VHF radio," says Cowan. "Everyone who goes boating should have a VHF. Runabouts may not have any marine radio, and one of the sad realities of boating tragedies is that boats less than 6m make up about 90 per cent of fatalities. Of that, the majority are very small boats.

"You reduce your odds in them because one of the things you can't do is shelter, the boat is also going to be more likely to be overturned by conditions, and you are going to be carrying less gear too."

Cowan, who says he wouldn't go more than half a mile offshore without a radio, says while cellphone coverage is good in the Hauraki Gulf, elsewhere around the coast it can be sporadic. Even in an area with coverage there can be problems. If you are at the bottom of a cliff you might not get a signal, and if the waves are driving you on to the rocks at the cliff base that's the time you need it most.

We are also a country where a lot of us need rescuing. Statistics show that in the 1991/92 year there were 860 search and rescue operations mounted, in 2001/02 there were 1120. Totals for tramping and hunting were much the same as those for boating and yachting.

There are about 300,000 boats around our coastline and 1.3 million people every year go out in a pleasure boat. And it's a big bit of water out there. Calling a rescue service and saying you've broken down halfway to Great Barrier isn't much use. That's a search area of at least 20 square miles, and at night the likelihood of being located isn't good.

Generally people can be specific when they call, in the bush referring to landmarks and at sea describing the coastline, but when information is secondhand it can be flawed or misinterpreted. Authorities say it's better for them to speak directly to the people involved, but even then there can be problems.

Cowan outlines a scenario: Dad's out fishing and gets into trouble, he rings home and mum rings the Coastguard to say he's somewhere out the back of Waiheke. That's not specific enough, so they ring him "and you get the cellphone answer message or that it's turned off or out of range. That happens a lot more often than you might think."

The other chief disadvantage of cellphones is that rescue people are only talking to the person on the other end of the phone. With marine radio they are talking to everyone and boats nearby can assist. It's not uncommon for a boat in difficulty to be near another, but without marine radio the others don't know there's a problem.

Jim Lott, nautical adviser for recreational boating at the Maritime Safety Authority, tells of an incident in the Hauraki Gulf a few years ago. A man in a boat had a heart attack and his friends used a cellphone to call for assistance. If they'd had a marine radio the heart surgeon in a nearby vessel could have been there within minutes to save the man's life.

"Any sort of communication device is going to have some positive impact on safety," says Lott, "but a marine radio is the same price as a cellphone - and you don't get a bill each month.

"Their big advantage is you talk to everybody around you as well as on shore. When you're going glug-glug you want as many as possible to know, there's the collective responsibility.

"The second thing is VHF has virtually full coverage. About 98 per cent out to 50 miles is fully covered by VHF with a 24-hour expert listening. Cellphones have good coverage in some areas but they are sporadic."

It's a peculiar comment on modern life, however, that when some boaties get into difficulty they'll reach for the cellphone, even when they've got a marine radio.

"They just haven't thought," says Cowan. "They get very embarrassed when we ask if they've got a radio and they have."

In the bush, cellphones are problematic. If they have been left on, their batteries quickly drain. But Inspector Mark Hall of the Auckland police, who oversees search and rescue, agrees cellphones have been a boon and have changed the character of their operations.

"People still get lost in the bush but numbers are down on the pre-cellphone era. We still have plenty of business, as it were, and cellphones can be over-relied on - people at sea should have a marine radio - but in general cellphones have been a saviour. A lot of our land searches now are rescues, as opposed to search and rescue.

"The classic in days gone by before cellphones would be a boat taking water with no marine radio. They'd have to wave somebody down, set off flares which may or may not be seen, or just wait until somebody is worried about them. They can drift and so you've got a relatively large search.

"These days you've relatively specific information, like 'I'm drifting on the the rocks and the engine shaft has come loose and I'm taking water'. That sort of thing. You know where they are, and know the nature of rescue."

Police have GPS - "It's the lazy man's map reading," says Hall - and increasingly trampers are investing the few hundred dollars in the system, which allows for exact pinpointing of location by latitude and longitude.

"Rural cops have them as a matter of routine," says Hall, "because they are so often dealing with aircraft to come to a location. And people can tell them where they are."

GPS has other uses for the police too: if they stumble on a cannabis plot they simply mark it on the GPS and can find their way back to the exact spot.

But all those in search and rescue say the same thing: people can be too complacent when it comes to personal safety. Having a cellphone when you go tramping is no substitute for wet weather gear, good equipment and intelligent preparation.

Or having a lifejacket, and telling people where you are going and when you'll be back if you're pushing out the runabout for a spot of fishing somewhere behind Waiheke.