It is already legal to use any communication means at your disposal when human life is in danger. This means if you have a transmitter you can transmit at any frequency calling for help. Transmitting on the sheriff's repeater's input frequency makes a lot of sense because their network covers the whole county. Most commercial HTs are blocked from transmitting out of band (or else they can't be sold.)
Good point and makes sense.
The Wouxun actually can be unlocked to transmit on the old PSB frequencies, which some of our Sheriff's Departments do still use, but I haven't done that (still contemplating that one). The same unlock procedure gives you the GMRS frequencies, which might be nice to have. I'll have to look and see if the band end points can be adjusted more precisely.