They were very reassuring. I think one benefit of being a lightkeeper is that you often know the search & rescue people in a social setting and from the professional side. I don't think we knew this crew personally (at least I didn't) but Mucca had been on the phone earlier on with the boat crew who comes for dinner and plays Settlers of Catan and stays over in our guest house a lot. She and the other lightkeeper have helped with search & rescue for a lot of other people before, so they know how it all goes. I mean, it's different when you're the one in trouble, but I think it must take some of the stress about "what happens now in this mysterious scary situation?" out of it. (The way I am less wigged out by hospitals than some people, having worked for a doctor for a while years back.)

tl;dr They were good people to have on hand. In their BIG HELICOPTER OMG.