After last week’s Earth Day demo, we tried to look into the future with our newly joined cave rescue teammate — wondering whether the BMSz would be needed over the upcoming long weekend. As it turned out, yes — and more than once.

The long weekend began on Wednesday afternoon. A distress call came from near Vértesszőlős: a paraglider had landed in a tree, not too far from the site where a rescue operation turnded fatal few years before. This time, the help didn’t arrive with a military helicopter, but in the form of a volunteer from the Tree Rescue Group coordinated by BMSz – a team made up of rope access experts, arborists, and cave rescuers. The pilot was swaying about 7–8 meters above the ground and was lucky to be uninjured – but it was unfortunate that due to dry branches, it wasn’t possible to climb above him or build an anchor point for hoisting or lowering. To bring him down safely, a diagonally hauling system was rigged to secure him toward the trunk, and a few thicker dry branches had to be cut to free him. It took about 30 minutes to lower the pilot, and three times as long to retrieve the canopy.

On the 24th of March 2025, at 10:47 p.m., a phone call was received from the emergency service of the Baranya County Disaster Management Directorate that a man who had been missing in the Máriagyűd area and had been searched for with great force since the afternoon, was finally found on the side of the Siklós quarry, at a depth of about 20-25 meters. Professional fire brigades from several cities arrived at the scene; however, it became evident, that alpine techniques were definitely required to reach the presumably injured young man. After the phone call, the Southern Hungary Regional Unit of the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service (BMSZ) was ordered to be on standby.

At 11:24 p.m., the county emergency service requested that the team should go to the scene. The regional unit from Orfű, Abaliget and Pécs arrived at the scene with 4 members at the time of 00:39 am. Upon arrival, professional and volunteer firefighting units had already reached the injured person, who was already in a serious and life-threatening condition. The team began to pull the injured person to the top of the quarry using a hauling system. Our members provided assistance in operating the hauling system and then in lifting the injured person to the edge of the quarry pit.

On December 21, while the final preparations for the concert were taking place on stage of Theater Hall, some spectators were caving towards the stage, a DINPI adventure tour for non-caver enthusiasts was climbing in direction to the surface. Towards the end of the tour, during a climb, one of the hikers got injured, his shoulder was dislocated. This type of injury is normally very painful and makes it impossible to leave the cave without help safely.

In this case, for the visitor in trouble, this type of injury was not the first case, so he had moderate pain, no other trauma, he was in good general condition, when the thinking of how to rescue him began. They didn't have to go far, because there were several rescuers present in the cave among the audience and the members of the Speleo Band, so we rushed to the aid of the injured man in the guise of the Cave Rescue Service, we were able to carry out one of the fastest evacuations in our history.

Given the good condition of the injured man, the proximity of the exit, and the easy cave terrain, we developed an assisted rescue plan that worked even with a limited number of rescue resources.

Two hikers set out from Dobogokő around noon on Tuesday 8 October to hike one of the most visited trails in the Visegrád-hegység, the Rám-szakadék. According to locals, they were preparing for a 4-hour hike, which turned out to be a lot more in the end.

They successfully completed the demainding route and then lost the signs of the hiking trail when they emerged from the gorge and got lost around 6 pm. Tired and unable to find their way back to the hiking trail on their own, they called a friend who contacted the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service (BMSz) incident manager around 7 pm.

Fortunately, with the help of the phone of the hikers, the incident manager was able to identify the exact location of the lost hikers and alerted two cave rescuers from Pomáz at 19:30. The cave rescuers set off shortly afterwards with food, hot drinks, headlamps and extra gear and then telephoned the lost hikers. Luckily they were close to the Hoffman-vadászház so the cave rescuers directed them there.