I wanted to share my recent experience using the SOS feature on my Spot Messenger (gen 1) on Sunday's Doc Wong dual-sport clinic ride, and some of my learnings from it. I'm posting this in General since many folks here carry a Spot and may be interested in my experience. I’m also posting to provide some ‘closure’ of sorts for the folks that were on the ride on Sunday and wondered why there was apparently no response to the Spot SOS call.
The specific incident related to a rider in our group who had injured his leg. I initiated a call for help using the “SOS” button on my Spot Messenger at 3:50PM. Immediately after pressing the button, all of us (~20 people at that point) all looked at each other and asked, “OK, what now?” No idea. We didn’t know if Spot/GEOS got the message, if they’d respond, who would respond, when they’d get here... Deep down, I was somewhat confident that help would eventually arrive, as we were in a very wide open area where the Spot could get good satellite reception, but there was no way of knowing, so we sat and waited. After sitting around for a bit, someone decided to head up Coalinga Rd see if they could find help or get cell reception. A rider set off, and came across a Cal Fire station 11 miles up the road. He asked for assistance, and led one of their trucks back to the site. They assessed the rider and called their dispatcher, who in turn contacted Monterey County AMR, who dispatched an ambulance. The ambulance arrived on scene about an hour later, and transported the rider. I asked both Cal Fire and AMR if they had been contacted by GEOS, and they all indicated they had not. Their response was initiated entirely by our rider seeking them out and asking for assistance. This left all of us with the impression that the Spot/GEOS service had let us down, so I decided to do some following up to understand what happened.
Looking at my tracking logs after the fact, the SOS call was received by GEOS (Spot’s contracted rescue service provider) within 1 minute of being placed, and the Spot continued to successfully transmit SOS calls every 5 minutes for the next 3 hours until I stopped it by sending an “OK” message, so the Spot hardware worked exactly as advertised. GEOS responded to the SOS call immediately. I have a voicemail on my cell phone (which was out of cell reception area at the time) from 2 minutes after the SOS call was sent. My wife (who is listed as my emergency contact) indicated that she received a call from GEOS at about the same time, and spoke with the dispatcher for several minutes. From this point on, things become a little fuzzy.
I’ve spoken with Cal Fire and with AMR (both San Benito and Monterey County) and they confirm that their dispatchers had no contact with GEOS. I’ve spoken with Spot, and they are willing to help look into the event, but they consider GEOS a subcontractor and don’t have any direct oversight for the service GEOS provides. I then contacted GEOS directly, at the phone number they left for me on their original voicemail. They were very helpful and polite, and provided me with the information from the incident log. It shows that GEOS first contacted my wife and spoke with her for several minutes collecting information. They then contacted the California OEM (Office of Emergency Management) which is their policy for any SOS call in California, and relayed all the information about the incident at 3:58 (about 8 minutes after the original SOS). According to the lady at GEOS I spoke with today, this is technically where their responsibility ends. However, the dispatcher went further and contacted the San Benito County Sherriff’s office at 4:10PM and advised them that they would be contacted by the CA OEM. What the California OEM and San Benito County Sherriff’s office did in the next 40 minutes is a mystery. The GEOS dispatcher eventually received a call at 4:40PM from the CA OEM advising him that Cal Fire was on scene. GEOS received another call later confirming that AMR was on scene. Each time GEOS received these updates they promptly relayed them to my wife, however GEOS would not give her the identity of the patient so she had no way of knowing if I was the one that was injured. They eventually did relay to her that the patient was stable and being transported to the hospital.
In the end, it appears as though GEOS did take some form of action on the SOS call. What sort of response would have resulted from this, and how long it would have taken, is unclear. What’s clear is that our rider going up the road and tracking down help from Cal Fire got the injured rider help much more quickly. In the end, I still have to believe that the SOS call to Spot/GEOS would have eventually resulted in a response, but it would have taken significantly longer than the 2 hours it took to get the rider transported out.
Some learnings and retrospective thoughts on the event:
- A Spot SOS call will likely result in a response, but don’t expect it to be fast. If the rider had been in need of any serious medical attention, we would have been on our own for a while.
- Having a Spot is definitely better than nothing, but any 1-way communication device is going to leave you wondering if the message has gone through and a response is on the way.
- A 1-way device that sends a generic SOS message is less than ideal if you have a spouse/SO. My wife had to endure 3 hours of not knowing if I was alive/dead. She was on the road headed to Monterey hoping to find me in the hospital by the time I finally got cell reception and was able to call her. To say that she’s traumatized by the event is definitely an understatement. She advises that I’m now only allowed to ride to the Starbucks and back for the foreseeable future (which is fitting, since I ride a GSA).
- At least two of us were first-aid/CPR trained but nobody had a first aid kit suitable for the types of injuries you might need to deal with in the field. A few people had first aid kits with band-aids, gauze, alcohol wipes, etc. but these are only marginally useful in a real emergency. Thankfully we didn’t need supplies in this incident, but it has caused me to reassess my level of preparedness when venturing out into remote locations.
In the end, I’ve concluded that (for me, at least) a one-way communication device may be better than nothing, but is inadequate to deal with real emergencies. The ‘ideal’ solution would be a sat phone, but at $1,400 for an Iridium Extreme plus a minimum of $50/month service, this is out of my price range. However, there are a few devices out now that enable 2-way SMS messaging, such as the DeLorme InReach. If one of us had one of these devices we would have been able to SMS with GEOS and confirm that they’d received the message and what exactly they were doing. I would have also been able to SMS my wife and let her know the specifics of the situation so she wouldn’t fear the worst. Each person should assess their own needs, but don’t underestimate what impact using the device will have on whomever you ID as your emergency contact.
Ride safe.
-John
The specific incident related to a rider in our group who had injured his leg. I initiated a call for help using the “SOS” button on my Spot Messenger at 3:50PM. Immediately after pressing the button, all of us (~20 people at that point) all looked at each other and asked, “OK, what now?” No idea. We didn’t know if Spot/GEOS got the message, if they’d respond, who would respond, when they’d get here... Deep down, I was somewhat confident that help would eventually arrive, as we were in a very wide open area where the Spot could get good satellite reception, but there was no way of knowing, so we sat and waited. After sitting around for a bit, someone decided to head up Coalinga Rd see if they could find help or get cell reception. A rider set off, and came across a Cal Fire station 11 miles up the road. He asked for assistance, and led one of their trucks back to the site. They assessed the rider and called their dispatcher, who in turn contacted Monterey County AMR, who dispatched an ambulance. The ambulance arrived on scene about an hour later, and transported the rider. I asked both Cal Fire and AMR if they had been contacted by GEOS, and they all indicated they had not. Their response was initiated entirely by our rider seeking them out and asking for assistance. This left all of us with the impression that the Spot/GEOS service had let us down, so I decided to do some following up to understand what happened.
Looking at my tracking logs after the fact, the SOS call was received by GEOS (Spot’s contracted rescue service provider) within 1 minute of being placed, and the Spot continued to successfully transmit SOS calls every 5 minutes for the next 3 hours until I stopped it by sending an “OK” message, so the Spot hardware worked exactly as advertised. GEOS responded to the SOS call immediately. I have a voicemail on my cell phone (which was out of cell reception area at the time) from 2 minutes after the SOS call was sent. My wife (who is listed as my emergency contact) indicated that she received a call from GEOS at about the same time, and spoke with the dispatcher for several minutes. From this point on, things become a little fuzzy.
I’ve spoken with Cal Fire and with AMR (both San Benito and Monterey County) and they confirm that their dispatchers had no contact with GEOS. I’ve spoken with Spot, and they are willing to help look into the event, but they consider GEOS a subcontractor and don’t have any direct oversight for the service GEOS provides. I then contacted GEOS directly, at the phone number they left for me on their original voicemail. They were very helpful and polite, and provided me with the information from the incident log. It shows that GEOS first contacted my wife and spoke with her for several minutes collecting information. They then contacted the California OEM (Office of Emergency Management) which is their policy for any SOS call in California, and relayed all the information about the incident at 3:58 (about 8 minutes after the original SOS). According to the lady at GEOS I spoke with today, this is technically where their responsibility ends. However, the dispatcher went further and contacted the San Benito County Sherriff’s office at 4:10PM and advised them that they would be contacted by the CA OEM. What the California OEM and San Benito County Sherriff’s office did in the next 40 minutes is a mystery. The GEOS dispatcher eventually received a call at 4:40PM from the CA OEM advising him that Cal Fire was on scene. GEOS received another call later confirming that AMR was on scene. Each time GEOS received these updates they promptly relayed them to my wife, however GEOS would not give her the identity of the patient so she had no way of knowing if I was the one that was injured. They eventually did relay to her that the patient was stable and being transported to the hospital.
In the end, it appears as though GEOS did take some form of action on the SOS call. What sort of response would have resulted from this, and how long it would have taken, is unclear. What’s clear is that our rider going up the road and tracking down help from Cal Fire got the injured rider help much more quickly. In the end, I still have to believe that the SOS call to Spot/GEOS would have eventually resulted in a response, but it would have taken significantly longer than the 2 hours it took to get the rider transported out.
Some learnings and retrospective thoughts on the event:
- A Spot SOS call will likely result in a response, but don’t expect it to be fast. If the rider had been in need of any serious medical attention, we would have been on our own for a while.
- Having a Spot is definitely better than nothing, but any 1-way communication device is going to leave you wondering if the message has gone through and a response is on the way.
- A 1-way device that sends a generic SOS message is less than ideal if you have a spouse/SO. My wife had to endure 3 hours of not knowing if I was alive/dead. She was on the road headed to Monterey hoping to find me in the hospital by the time I finally got cell reception and was able to call her. To say that she’s traumatized by the event is definitely an understatement. She advises that I’m now only allowed to ride to the Starbucks and back for the foreseeable future (which is fitting, since I ride a GSA).
- At least two of us were first-aid/CPR trained but nobody had a first aid kit suitable for the types of injuries you might need to deal with in the field. A few people had first aid kits with band-aids, gauze, alcohol wipes, etc. but these are only marginally useful in a real emergency. Thankfully we didn’t need supplies in this incident, but it has caused me to reassess my level of preparedness when venturing out into remote locations.
In the end, I’ve concluded that (for me, at least) a one-way communication device may be better than nothing, but is inadequate to deal with real emergencies. The ‘ideal’ solution would be a sat phone, but at $1,400 for an Iridium Extreme plus a minimum of $50/month service, this is out of my price range. However, there are a few devices out now that enable 2-way SMS messaging, such as the DeLorme InReach. If one of us had one of these devices we would have been able to SMS with GEOS and confirm that they’d received the message and what exactly they were doing. I would have also been able to SMS my wife and let her know the specifics of the situation so she wouldn’t fear the worst. Each person should assess their own needs, but don’t underestimate what impact using the device will have on whomever you ID as your emergency contact.
Ride safe.
-John
