WalkSOS / If you need rescue
Dial 999. Ask for Police, then Mountain Rescue.
Mountain Rescue is not a separate number. It is called out by the police, so the police are who you ask for. On a cliff or a shoreline, ask for Coastguard instead.
The four steps, printed on the banner
If you need rescue
This is the procedure printed on the back of the banner, at a size you can read in bad light with cold hands. Read it now rather than then.
- Call
Dial 999 or 112. Ask for Police, then Mountain Rescue. On a cliff or shoreline, ask for Coastguard.
- Give your location
what3words, OS grid reference or latitude and longitude. Any one of them is enough. Read it out twice.
- Report it as CHALET
Casualties. Hazards. Access. Location. Emergency services needed. Type of incident.
- Stay exactly where you are
Until the team contacts you. Moving is what makes people hard to find. If the team texts you a link, tap it. It sends them your position.
Deploy
Deploy the banner while you wait. Peg or weight all four corners. Angle it so it can be seen from above as well as across. Stay with it.
No phone
Six whistle blasts or six torch flashes, repeated every minute. Six, then a minute's pause, then six again. Keep the banner deployed.
Nobody coming
Do not set off to find help unless you are certain you can reach it. A party that splits up becomes two searches.
Do this before you leave the house
Register your phone for 999 by text. If you can get a weak signal but not a call, a text will often still get through, and you cannot register once you are in trouble.
The emergencySMS service is part of the standard 999 service. Details at Relay UK. It usually takes about two minutes end to end.
Saying where you are
Any one of these is enough, and the operator will take whichever you have. Do not spend time converting between them.
If the team texts you a link, tap it. It returns your handset's position to them directly, which is more accurate than anything you can read out.
Everything above tells them roughly where. The last few hundred metres, somebody has to actually see you.
A quarter of Mountain Rescue call-outs in 2024 were a search. The geometry and the statistics behind that, with sources.
Five well-walked routes with altitude profiles, and what makes each one hard to be found on.
This page is not medical or mountaincraft training. It reproduces the procedure printed on the product and points at the organisations that publish the real guidance. If you walk in the hills, get proper navigation training and carry a map.