Police Helos in Oz all have winches (in addition to all the Police equipment) and crews who are trained to use them. No biggie really, just need to pay for the winch ($200,000 for a Goodrich), and then train (and keep current) your police crewies. It's not that hard for most things.
Granted (and I'm writing this as Crab is already typing furiously) that some of the bigger things such as night maritime rescues should be left to the big boys and the big toys. Everything else however is pretty simple. In this case, a straight forward double lift (hypothermic if the chap was in the water for a long time).
My personal opinion is that the CAA make it so
hard for the civvies to do anything the rest of the world has been doing for years (winching, fast roping, sniping, NVG etc) they should be sacked and you should start again.
An ideal time to look at how you do SAR I think. Imagine if half of your Police aircraft were winch fitted, how much help could they be.
Only my opinion though.......
