aricooperdavis
Moderator
For every person underground there are more or less an equal number of surface team member on the shout.
Sometimes you are underground sometimes not.
I couldn't tell if you were replying to me, but it's worth clarifying anyway: I have used "underground work" and "surface work" to differentiate between cave/mine and non-cave/mine SAR work, not because I'm trying to imply that all cave/mine SAR work happens underground. My apologies if this was unclear. On the last rescue I attended there were 2 cave-rescuers underground and about 10 on the surface (as well as loads from other services).