Back in the days of Wessex SAR in UK, a brand new, just out of the long SAR course, winch Op had to cut the cable on his very first rescue.
They were winching to a yacht in poor weather and deployed the winchman - unfortunately, the pilot lost sight of the yacht and started to drift towards the bow.
The winchman hit the mast and was being dragged up it towards the spreader for the stays and would have been sliced to bits had the winch Op not cut the cable.
I wasn't involved but worked at the SAR Taining unit next door so we had just finished training the winch Op.