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The Documentary: Iceland Rescue

Iceland Search and Rescue Team

08/11/2016 GMT

Iceland Rescue

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Iceland Rescue

Life as a volunteer out on call with Ice-SAR: Iceland’s search and rescue workers

Paul Smith ventures out on call in the highlands with Ice-SAR: Iceland’s search and rescue volunteers

A family stranded in a snowfield. A woman with vertigo on a mountain. A hiker falling in lava. These are just some of the jobs for Slysavarnafélagið Landsbjörg (Ice-SAR): the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue.
 
Ice-SAR is an elite national emergency militia with a gallant reputation in Iceland. In place of an army, its skilled volunteers, all unpaid, are expertly trained, well equipped, self-financed and self-sufficient. They perform rescues by sea, land and air and contend with earthquakes, avalanches, volcanic eruptions, storms and the island’s brutal, unpredictable weather.
 
Paul Smith ventures to Landmannalaugar in the Icelandic Highlands during peak tourist season. With two million people expected to visit Iceland this year, how is its rescue volunteers responding to the enormous strain on their services on an increasingly popular island?

(Photo: Volunteers of the Icelandic Association for Search and Rescue)

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