We must not forget that people operate in different ways around the world. I have noticed that there are a lot of people who think nothing of leaving a running aircraft unattended. There was a documentary on Discovery where it showed an EMS helicopter something like a EC145 just landed on scene and the pilot got out in order to open the clamshell doors in order to hand the stretcher to the paramedics all this while the helicopter was idling.
These AGpilots have been operating like the picture shows for years and I presume the statistics will bear out that it is not as dangerous as it makes out. If they had lost a couple helicopters operating like that they would have stopped that kind of operation due to them not being able to afford to many helicopters.
Now this my thinking after reading the industry Magazines and the like.
Now I personally would feel unhappy to leave my helicopter running without me at the controls, but then my training was very thorough in regards to something like this and of course here in the UK the rules don't allow it.
I would like to just say hang fire before anyone brands these hard working pilots as cowboys.