I for one am sure it is all too real. Earlier in the year I had reason to contact D&D - I'm not going to go into the details here but it involved being unsure of my position, serious radio problems and, eventually, a wonderful pilot in an Emirates Airbus somewhere over the continent relaying messages for D&D (they could hear me but I couldn't hear them) The Head of Training was chatting to me a day or two later and told me that it is not unkown for D&D to have to teach someone to fly straight and level before they can do anything else to help - something confirmed by them when I visited them later in the year to thank them. Having heard the exchanges between another 152 from outside the local area, and Shawbury recently (I won't embarrass the FI or the School involved here - you know who you are) I am not surprised. The student seemd to be completely oblivious to everything, it took him three tries to read back a simple QFE and four for the squawk - eventually read back by the FI. He was so unaware that on being told that there was one ahead in the circuit at EGBO (me) he replied that he was visual with HIM! Now, I had made several calls to Shawbury during the time he was on their frequency and the same at EGBO so if he was paying attention then he would definitely have heard me speaking. My point is that he wasn't on his own (and yes, he was a "he") he had someone qualified with him and it wasn't an emergency situation and yet he managed to make mistakes, so how much easier must it be for someone on his or her own? It is very difficult to judge who will cope and who will not and it isn't always the person you think it will be.
As an aside, I was very saddened to hear that the vast majority of people helped by D&D do not even bother to ring them and thank them for the help they were given so, if you are ever in the position of needing their services, once you are safely on the ground again, just pick up the phone and thank them, better still send a card or drop in with some biscuits.
It's a small price to pay for being dug out of a potentially nasty hole.