If something goes wrong

Mountain rescue in the UK is free, run by volunteers and called out through the police. If someone is injured, lost in bad conditions or can't get down safely, call. Teams would far rather come early than late.

Before you ever need it

• Register your phone for emergency text messages: text "register" to 999 and follow the reply. A text can get through where a call can't.
• Leave your route and times with someone at home.
• Carry a whistle, a head torch and something to keep an injured person warm.

Making the call

1. Call 999 or 112 and ask for Police, then Mountain Rescue. Your phone will use any network it can find for an emergency call.
2. Say where you are. A six-figure grid reference is best, with the name of the hill or path. Many phones show a grid reference in a mapping app without signal.
3. Say what has happened: how many people, their injuries, their ages, and what the weather is doing.
4. Give your phone number and stay where you are with the phone switched on. The team may ring back.

No signal

Try a text to 999 if you have registered. Move a short way to higher or more open ground if it is safe. If you must send someone for help, send two if you can, with the location written down.

The distress signal is six blasts on a whistle, or six flashes of a torch, in a minute, then a minute's pause, then again. The reply is three.

While you wait

• Get the casualty and everyone else out of the wind and off the wet ground: sit on rucksacks, put on every spare layer, get into a survival bag or shelter.
• Give basic first aid. Don't move someone with a suspected back or neck injury unless they are in danger where they are.
• Keep eating and drinking, and keep the group together.
• Help can take hours to reach you on foot. Make yourselves easy to see: bright clothing, a torch after dark.

General guidance from the TRXO team, last read through on 6 Nov 2026. It is no substitute for training or for your own judgement on the day.