To add to Jamie's point, situational awareness is where people tend to get hung up. And more times than not, when that is lost, panic comes into play. So I can see pretty easily where one thing led to another, and for some people it's very difficult to hit the abort button and attempt to break contact, to use the old Army phrasing. I've had no issue backing off when I'm unsure on whether I'm in a safe position, but I've also tempted fate enough over my life that I have no desire to do so further.
Maintaining situational awareness is something that can be trained for, but it's not easy to resist the sensation of panic when it starts to set in. And to be completely fair, even most trained people momentarily freeze when taking fire for the first time, or ending up in some other dangerous situation. And I don't think that this is a bad analogy to use.
Something I've also seen discussion wise over the past few days is people asking what to get for first aid, SAR, etc. The first thing I would recommend is to get training. At the very least, get CPR certified and take some kind of basic first aid course. Ideally, a more advanced course (like a wilderness medicine course) would be great. And I'd stay away from premade kits. Most of them are crap, and you'll end up replacing half the stuff in them if you have the knowledge base to know what's needed and what's not. Another thing that gets overlooked is triage. That needs to be trained for as well, especially if there's not EMS on the scene yet. The more information that you can give them when they do show up, the easier time they'll have evaluating the situation. If you have the means to communicate with them when they're on the way, even better. Oftentimes, this can be accomplished via ham radio as many EMAs have a licensed ham at the EOC during events. We had a system in the military for communication with incoming medevacs to let them know what to expect. I would imagine there's a similar one on the civilian side.
Beyond that, if you don't have the aptitude or training to help medically, something as simple as being able to clear a path for EMS and Fire to get their vehicles in is invaluable. If you have a chainsaw and a winch, you can as much good as anyone with medical training, because if they can't get those vehicles in, it makes transport much more difficult. On rare occasions, an LZ for a LifeFlight may need to be cleared, although they rarely fly in inclement weather (just like military pilots rarely fly into a hot LZ).
