The son was left there on a mission agreed with local official staff to rescue a person of greater need, which otherwise would have been needed to rescue anyway

The son was left there on a mission agreed with local official staff to rescue a person of greater need, which otherwise would have been needed to rescue anyway. If the local chief decides to send a free helicopter away is one thing, but then sending the father away while failing to provide another extraction is just a sign of not being able to handle the situation. Ideally, there would have been an easy process for volunteers to get involved. They might have told him to come, but with the son back at home.