Flying Lawyer opined:
I think the point being made was the pilot of the Parks Police LongRanger carried out the rescues in circumstances which some contributors (based on what they've said here) might think were dangerous.
The point is that what the Park Police crew did with a helicopter that awful day was the EXACT thing for which it was invented: doing something that, at the time, no other machine on earth could do. "Dangerous" is one thing. Illegal (or against the rules) is something else. But it is curious that Bronx phrased it the way he did.
There is no "rule" against flying in snow, nor is it dangerous; a LongRanger equipped with snow baffles (as that one was) is perfectly capable of doing it.
There is no "rule" against hovering low over water or putting a skid under the surface to allow a passenger to board. Looked like expert flying to me, not luck.
The "single-engines are fine" guys wouldn't even argue that the operation would have been any safer in a TwinSquirrel.
We're not talking semantics here. I personally do not believe that what the Park Police did that day was "dangerous," nor would it be considered breaking "every rule in the book" on either side of the Atlantic. Now, if it had been two guys (a pilot and his traffic-reporter partner, say) out in their commercial LongRanger that day...