(I staretd typing this and then immediately deleted.  I realised it could sound a bit cheeky and I certainly didnt want you to be offended!)But  okay:
1.  The episode was only 90 minutes long...what else could they have cut out to show John's full rescue?(which personally I didn't need to see.  I can use my imagination, to fill in the gaps).
2. The whole episode was deliberately surreal anyway, so why would they waste time on paractical details like that?

I am generally happy to accept these are fictions and by definition stretch the boundaries of realism.
I have no interest in the nitty gritty minutia...I wan't to know about character development and relationship building.
Sherlock may purport to be a detective series. But for me it is all heart.  It is about love and it is about family.