The thing that worries me is although many good points have been made about risk assessment etc much of it would have made little or no difference given the extremely inaccurate info we were given.
There isn't really a defence against that other than responders confirming what they've been told each step of the way and relaying it back where advice sought or help asked for can change.
I will certainly be strongly advising very careful on foot recces in future and ongoing communication needs sorting as much as possible.
I'm a bit more conflicted about accepting requests from new members.
Most join LZ looking for help in one form or another and we don't question whether they'll stay before trying to help.
I do think we were taken for a ride yesterday and I have banned someone who needed recovery (a 'well known' member), lied about the situation and , as I found out later, was banned from driving but I'm reluctant to measure others against examples like that.
People are free to choose who they can and would like to assist and there is no pressure.
Getting no response to contact numbers is different and frustrating because we have no idea whether the text is ignored or the contact no longer valid.