Do you mean civilian as opposed to military or private pilots as opposed commercial pilots in a SAR/Medevac role?
To clarify - by civilian I mean non professionally trained SAR - not military, police, coastguard etc.
Rescuing someone is a different ballgame
Indeed, and I wouldn't expect the average ppl for example to be capable of carrying out a rescue, but simply to report what they found and the location to the appropriate agency so that the SAR resources can be tasked. I believe that is what the pilot did in the story I quoted.
BC