Garmin has released its 2023 SOS Year in Review, and the results reveal a lot about bushwalker behaviour and safety.
Roughly one-third of SOS calls came from remote bushwalkers. (According to Garmin, most people triggered an SOS response for themselves - which shows the importance of having one on your person especially if you are travelling alone - but also a large percentage of SOS calls were for someone else in a group or a third-party adventurer in distress.)
The most common reason to trigger an SOS dispatch was injury. This includes broken bones, deep cuts, and blunt force trauma from a fall. Injured ankles are the most common bushwalking mishaps.
Some more common SOS calls were because of medical issues such as altitude sickness, heart problems, and gastrointestinal distress.
Other calls for help came when users were lost, stranded, in sight of a wildfire, or trying to find another missing person.
Last year showed the biggest increase in vehicle-caused mishaps. That could be because of worse road conditions, more people traveling to their adventures by car, or greater knowledge of inReach capabilities.
The inReach can call emergency services in areas without phone service—so people use their inReach after getting into an accident, encountering adverse weather, or experiencing mechanical issues outside of phone service zones.