Recording Rescuer Fatalities

Introduction

Thank you for downloading this form. The form is to report a rescuer’s death to ICAR. The reporting person (the sender) can be a close relative of the rescuer or a representative of a mountain rescue team or ICAR Member Organisation.

First and most importantly, ICAR appreciates that reporting a rescuer’s death is an emotional time. Please take your time and do the form when you feel it is appropriate. We want to understand what has happened. We hope this will help identify preventable causes and hence benefit the safety of future missions. To enable us to do this we need to capture all deaths in mountain rescue. So even the briefest of a report is valuable to us. We will analyse the information you provide in a sensitive and an anonymous way. The latter may be impossible in the internet era as a rescuer death is rare and frequently newsworthy. We will not criticise any rescuer or team. We undertake to inform you of our analysis and give you an opportunity to comment. We do not want to duplicate the work of national/regional bodies so please enclose, or signpost us to, any such information that can be shared. You may feel unable to provide detail of a rescuer’s death if legal processes have not been completed. It may be appropriate to provide us with a brief report of the publicly available information in the first instance, and then forward the details and outcomes when you are free to do so.

All data is held by ICAR and is subject to ICAR’s privacy and data protection policies. These are available on the ICAR website (ICAR Privacy Policy).

Additionally, we wish to create a public record - a ‘Line of Duty’ list available to the general public to honour those that had their lives shortened by their service to mountain rescue. This is optional and we will respect your wish if you do not want this.

Before starting the form please read the ‘Help with the Form and Definitions’ section (page 5) and if you have any queries please email them to mountain.medicine@alpine-rescue.org. The form can be completed in any language but English is preferred. The completed form (along with any attachments) should be sent to mountain.medicine@alpine-rescue.org. Please see the ‘Next steps’ section (page 5) if you have to protect the electronic transmission of sensitive data as to how this can achieved. On receiving a form, we will acknowledge this with the sender and outline what is happening with the data.

We really appreciate your help. Thank you.

Franz Stämpfli                                      John Ellerton

ICAR President                                    Project Lead, ICAR Medcom