The Guardia Civil, mountain-rescue teams, Sereim were called out twice last weekend, once in the Caldera de Sierra Nevada area and the other in Los Cahorros (Monachil).

In the first case the person who required the help of the rescue team suffers from a degenerative disease and the second case was of an obese man who had suffered from a syncope (fainting caused by a decrease in blood flow to the brain, typically from low blood pressure).

These two rescue missions are linked to good weather conditions that inspire some people to set off on hikes, very often ill prepared or overestimating their physical capacity, especially endurance.

This tendency is growing, which is reflected in the statistics that Sereim have: in 1990 they had to carry out 18 rescue missions. By the year 2000 there were 42 and in 2010 there were 73, involving ten deaths 54 with injuries and 26 in good health. In other words, call outs had increased by 300% in those 20 years.

Furthermore, in the last ten years the use of mobile phones has caused people to call for help when confronted by any adversity rather than trying to sort it out for themselves.

Couple this with the increase in online sales of mountain-sports material and for abseiling down waterfalls and you can begin so see what is behind the 300% increase in call outs.

The black spots where the rescue team are most likely to be deployed are in the Sierra Nevada area: the Pico de Mulhacén, Veleta, Cahorros, Barranco de san Juan, Poqueira, Río Verde, Vereda de la Estrella and Laguna de las Yeguas, just to name the top ranking ones.

The rescue helicopters based in the Granada air base, Armilla, knock 80 minutes off a round trip, making the locating of victims and getting them to hospital if needed, much quicker.

(News: Sierra Nevada, Granada, Andalucia).