Millions of German television viewers know and love the hit series “Die Bergretter” (The Mountain Rescuers), in which spectacular helicopter maneuvers, daring climbing exploits, and dramatic rescues provide high-tension entertainment.

Reality behind fiction

But behind the fiction lies a reality that is often just as breathtaking: real emergency services who help with courage and team spirit. The Red Cross Mountain Rescue Service is active not only in the bizarre high mountain world of Austria and the Bavarian Alps, but also in the German low mountain ranges and other regions that are difficult to access, making an important contribution to civil protection – for example in Lower Saxony. Here, the Osterode-Goslar district association of the German Red Cross maintains four mountain rescue groups with 80 volunteers in St. Andreasberg, Vienenburg, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, and Langelsheim.

More than 35 people per day require emergency medical care

A total of around 12,000 people across Germany volunteer every day with the German Red Cross Mountain Rescue Service. Where other rescue services reach their limits, these men and women rescue people from steep, rocky, or hard-to-reach terrain. The Mountain Rescue Service works closely with helicopter teams to rescue injured people from cliffs using winches or to evacuate people from stuck cable cars, as shown in the film. Almost 13,000 people require emergency medical care from the Mountain Rescue Service's volunteer emergency responders every year. That's 1,083 per month or more than 35 per day.

The nationwide figures show that it is not only high mountains that have their pitfalls. In 2024, there were 114 rescues in the Harz Mountains in Lower Saxony alone. In addition, there were 31 other assistance operations such as search operations, support for firefighting operations, and other medical assistance without transport. Sometimes it is just a plaster that the rescuers use to treat someone in a ski resort, or a cooling pad for minor injuries.

Joint training sessions

The work of rescuers is based on good training and regular practice. An example: It is Friday, 5:30 p.m., duty evening in St. Andreasberg. Volunteers from the St. Andreasberg and Vienenburg mountain rescue teams are currently practicing together. “We have come up with a little scenario: a forestry worker has gone down a steep slope, fallen and injured his knee. He cannot get himself out of this situation,” explains Martina Trübel. She is the deputy head of the St. Andreasberg mountain rescue service and the technical director of the mountain rescue service at district level. The emergency services arrived with several vehicles and the necessary equipment, but were unable to drive to the scene of the accident. The equipment was therefore loaded onto a trailer and transported across the terrain by quad bike.

The tasks are then distributed. Some attach ropes to a tree and prepare a rope safety system. Others search for the injured forestry worker on the steep slope. When they find him, they ask him what happened and how he is doing. They then treat his knee and apply a vacuum splint.

Secured with straps and protected by a helmet, the forestry worker is lifted onto a mountain stretcher. Both the stretcher and the rescuers are secured with ropes. Their comrades use a pulley system to haul them up the mountain. Slowly, the mountain stretcher with the patient and the rescuers arrives at the mountain summit.

Throughout the entire operation, the two teams remain in contact via radio and coordinate the rescue effort with each other. Once at the top, a wheel is attached to the stretcher so that it can be pushed across the terrain to the point where, in a real emergency, the ambulance could drive up or the helicopter could land. Finally, the equipment is packed up again in accordance with regulations and stowed in the vehicles.