I'm not sure how useful in general an unprepared person being able to call for help necessarily is. There is search and rescue (mostly volunteer) of course. But no one is going to assemble a rescue team at the drop of a hat.
It seems like this is a big advantage of the inreach in that you can text with EMS to convey if it is an urgent situation. You can also text friends/family to make alternate arrangements if the regular rescue people aren’t going to be fast enough.
Unless you as an individual are somehow more equipped to deal with emergencies than camp staff, I'm not sure being reachable would make any difference. I would hope in a real emergency, the first call would be to the appropriate emergency service regardless.
SAR here in BC Canada vastly prefer that you call at the first hint of trouble, even if you don’t think you necessarily need help.
They would much rather be on alert and be stood down, or assist someone over the phone who called early and is easy to find and help. The problem is that many people wait until conditions deteriorate or they are much more lost.
Sending a team of a few people to go out and call your name along a trail during the day in clear weather is easy. Sending a team of people to find a hypothermic or injured person at night and extract them is an order of magnitude more involved and risky.
In other words, no one will be upset if you call out of caution.
We have many emts and fire fighters (medical training part of the job) waiting for something. Take those on call...
I agree with your point though, we can safely make a difference to someone, but statically it doesn't show up as we dare not spare that many people lest a real local emergency happen.
Honestly that sounds like a better use case than some being described. It was clearly an emergency situation and someone could have presumably reached them relatively quickly. Maybe car breakdowns or getting stranded are the bigger deal.
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