YOU MUST CALL MAYDAY FOR RIT TO WORK: WILL YOU?

BY Dr. BURTON A. CLARK, EFO; RAUL A. ANGULO; and STEVEN AUCH

You have probably participated in some type of rapid intervention team (RIT) or "Saving Our Own" training, and your SOPs may have some directions on a Mayday. The odds are, however, that you have not been given specific rules on when to call a Mayday. You are taught to be the rescuer, not the victim, and your Recognition-Primed Decision-Making process (defined below) may interfere with your calling a Mayday when you should.

What does this mean for firefighters? First, it means that we've put the cart before the horse. It doesn't matter how well trained or well equipped your RIT is. Unless the incident is witnessed, RIT teams won't be activated unless you or your partner calls a Mayday. The training emphasis has been on saving our own, not on our own calling for help. We would hate to speculate, but firefighters might have survived had they recognized early enough that they needed help or that something was out of the norm and they had called a Mayday. Deputy Assistant Chief Curt Varone, of Providence, Rhode Island, has verified our thoughts by identifying 11 structure fires between 1978 and 2002 in which failing to call or delaying a call of a Mayday contributed to 24 line-of-duty deaths (LODDs).1