A couple of comments from an old winch operator guys. The incident in Israel was caused by the 2 guys falling out of the ac with 18 inches of slack cable, the shock loading snapped the cable. A longer length of cable has the ablility to absorb the shock, the end of a 300 ft wire is remarkably smooth ride. Breeze have produced a clutch to minimise the risks.
In the days of 100 ft hoists, we used climbing ropes then purpose made 60 ft and 120 extensions to extend the hoist. The extra time taken to deploy the kit with sometimes a very long carry was not beneficial to the casualty. Thank God for the 300 ft hoist
In my opinion, if you are going to do the job, you have to bite the bullet and provide a hoist equiped aircraft with the extra expense that entails. Yes you have to pay for hoist operator, and some of them are not very good. REMEMBER pay peanuts, you get monkeys. No offense to any winch operators out there.