Every responder deserves an ally.
Raquel Sapp - Austere Medicine Educator
My work sits at the intersection of wilderness medicine, emergency and critical care, outdoor education, risk management and global health, with a particular interest in how people make decisions and care for one another when resources are limited.
For more than 15 years, I’ve worked across EMS, nursing, wilderness and mountain rescue, climbing instruction and outdoor education. That experience has taken me from ambulances and hospitals to remote field environments, technical rescues and wilderness medicine classrooms throughout North America and internationally.
I founded Backcountry Pulse in 2018 after years of seeing areas of wilderness medicine education that I believed could be approached differently. At the center of that work is the belief that high-quality wilderness medicine education should be accessible, evidence-based and relevant to the communities actually using it.
I’m especially interested in the parts of wilderness medicine that are harder to fit neatly into an algorithm. Communication, culture, stress, decision-making, compassion and responder wellbeing all influence how we assess, respond and care for people in difficult situations. My broader work includes risk management, emergency planning and helping outdoor organizations think more holistically about physical and psychological safety.
Rescue Ally grew out of many of those same curiously eager conversations. Jon and I wanted to build something practical for the realities of rescue and remote medicine, where providers may be cold, tired, managing several problems at once and working without the resources they would normally have available. We each bring unique backgrounds to the project and share an interest in making useful information easier to access when it matters.
One of my favorite parts of this work is still the moment when someone realizes they are more capable than they thought they were. So here’s to helping individuals, teams and communities become more capable, more prepared and better equipped to care for one another.
Jon Hieb - App Developer
Adventurer | Father | Engineer
As a mountaineer, trail runner, and climber, I'm always seeking the next big challenge. As a husband and father of 3 amazing children, I'm committed to staying alive.
I'm a certified Wilderness First Responder and applied the techniques in real-life situations more than once. I've been building software since 2010, including a stint at CalTopo, and I've always felt like there was a gap in technology for austere medicine, but needed the partnership of a genuine expert to build something that would actually serve the needs of rescuers.
When I took WFR recertification from Raquel and her business Backcountry Pulse in 2024, a student asked if there was an app, and Raquel mentioned that nothing really existed that filled the need. When she asked if anyone in the class knew any app developers, I immediately raised my hand. Discussing with her afterwards, and feeling the energy, it was immediately apparent that I'd found the business partner I'd been looking for.
I grew up in an era of technology before social media, and used the internet in those early days before things got completely cynical. I still believe in a vision of technology where it is used to solve real problems that real people have, where people get what they pay for, and where we set ourselves apart by building the most useful product, not by using deceptive business tactics.
Raquel and I worked together for nearly two years and countless hours to bring the first version of Rescue Ally to you. It's been a labor of dedication and passion from each of us, combining our talents and training to create something truly special. I'm proud of what we've built together. We've got a long way to go, and I look forward to taking Rescue Ally beyond, finding new ways for technology to assist with rescue in remote locations and difficult circumstances.