By Captain John Wright
I’d like to share some ways that we have been training for the Mayday scenario. We tackled it in several phases over several months, and it is an ongoing process that is still being developed. This is what has worked for us so far, and I hope you can steal parts that you like and make suggestions for parts that you think can be improved on. Our training began several years ago after we completed a very involved rapid intervention team (RIT) drill. We found that we were getting good at getting out of sticky situations, but we realized that we hadn’t trained on how to call for help. My captain, who is now my battalion chief, found a CD at the National Fire Academy that covered how and when to call a Mayday and brought it back to the station. We all watched the videos and heard the radio traffic from brothers who had lost their lives. It was disturbing, but we quickly realized how important this type of training is. It took nearly two years to get the entire department trained. This is a review of how we did it.
Phase 1
We developed a standard operating guideline (SOG) and reviewed it at the shift level. The SOG outlined several circumstances of when to call the Mayday: becoming lost inside a structure, a building collapse or being trapped under falling debris, falling through a floor, and entanglement—also, any condition that puts you in danger that you can’t fix without assistance, such as being out of air or missing a crew member.
We talked about what information needed to be given. We went with LUNAR: Location, Unit calling, Name, Actions (that you were performing) and Resources (what you thought you needed to get out of your situation). I also learned UCAN, which stands for Unit calling, Conditions, Actions, and Needs. Either one works; you just need to make sure that you provide enough information to direct crews to your location.
Once the Mayday is called, we activate the PASS device. If the situation allows, we talked about making an attempt to self-rescue. Look for a window or an exterior wall, and try to get outside. There has been recent talk about abandoning these acronyms because of the difficulties people are having trying to remember what they stand for. We have a terrible habit in the fire service of finding a word that we like and forcing words into the acronym to make it work. Personally, I would prefer that someone who is in trouble tell me who he is, where he us, and what he wants. That gives enough information to get resources headed that way and removes the problem of trying to remember what the “N” stands for.
Also, we talked about moving all fireground communications to a different channel and leaving the channel the Mayday was called on specifically for the incident commander and the firefighter calling for help.
We also emphasized the need to remain as calm as possible, it takes time to get to where you are, and it’s vital to conserve your air. We made it very clear that the second you realize you are in a Mayday situation, you have to immediately get on the radio. You can still try to solve whatever problem you encountered, but it is paramount that you get resources coming to you early. You can always call and cancel it. This is by far the most important part of the Mayday scenario. You won’t lose any “man points” for calling for help. If it makes you feel any better, think of it as the following: “Hey, I just opened up the gates of Hell, and I’m looking directly at the devil himself. You guys have to come in here and see this. Also, take me out with you when you get here and decide to leave.”
Last, we made it clear that there is to be no freelancing. We don’t need unaccounted for crews bailing off into the structure and getting in a situation themselves. We are reviewing what exactly the RIT crew does when the Mayday is called. We used to have them drag 400 pounds of stuff in with them, but in reality most of that gear can stay in the front yard. It all has to do with what caused the problem and what is really needed to drag them out. The clearer your call for help is, the better they can respond. Our truck crew has standing orders to start throwing ladders and forcing doors open, among other things. This is also something we are working on, as our truck crew is relatively new to our department.
Our SOG has a lot more information in it, but this is the meat of it. It mainly focuses on being able to recognize a Mayday situation, calling for help early, giving adequate information, and working as a team to get all of the resources heading in the right direction. Again, early activation is the key. It’s an arduous task making a firefighter rescue that takes more resources than you probably have to give. You don’t need to complicate things by wasting precious time.
Phase 2
We were fortunate enough to have access to a training facility that had a Mayday simulator setup. It has four stations, all of which were completed in full gear with the lights out. The first one was a simulated closet the firefighters crawled into. Once past a certain point, a door was shut behind them. When they realized that they had hit all four walls and were unable to come out the way they came in, they were asked to get on the radio and call the Mayday. One of the training coordinators outside of the room received their radio traffic.
We critiqued them on clarity, how fast they were talking, and if they gave enough information to direct the crews outside to their location. Be very careful if you are using a channel that is monitored by the news media. If it is, make sure to periodically state “this is a drill.” We had a news van show up one day. It turned out to be a good thing because a story was written on our training since they were already there.
The next station was to simulate entanglement. As they crawled out of the closet, we clipped a piece of webbing to their self-contained breathing apparatus and let them crawl until it pulled tight. Some of the rookies tried to turn around and cut it with their tools, but that isn’t the point of the training. We want them to get in the habit of recognizing one of the Mayday prompts and going through the motions of getting on the radio. If they wanted to spin around and try to free themselves after the Mayday was called, that was fine. If they do that, make sure they get back on the radio and cancel the Mayday.
The third station simulated a roof collapse. As they turned a corner, two firefighters threw a chain-link fence section on top of them and dove on top. The more pinned the firefighters are to the floor, the better. This gives them a chance to practice getting to their radio with limited mobility, and being held down in a dark environment adds a small element of panic. We remind them to control their breathing and to give a full report. Again, each time they call for the Mayday, the quality and composition of their message are reviewed. Another one of the rookies threw the guys off and bear-crawled out from under the fence—a noble achievement, but not part of the training.
The last station was the one I hated the most. We had them crawl up a set of stairs and onto a plank. It is set to collapse when you cross a certain point and drops you into a pit below full of foam rubber and pillows. This station was very effective. You never fall the same way twice, and every tumble you take presents new problems. Helmets fall off, radios get dropped, and being surrounded by tiny bits of pool noodles makes it hard to get your arms out from under you. Once they called the Mayday, the drill was over, and they went off air and got out of their gear.
You don’t necessarily have to have a special training tower to set this up. All of these stations can easily be recreated with items you have in your stations, and you don’t have to use all four of them, or any of them for that matter. Come up with your own. Just be sure to share them if they work for you. The purpose is to develop “muscle memory” by going through the motions of recognizing a Mayday scenario and getting on the radio. After three or four trips through the simulator, we noticed that guys were able to rattle off the Mayday without having to think: “L” stands for Location, I’m on the second floor; “U” stands for….um, units.” There isn’t time during an actual Mayday to be fumbling through an acronym, so it has to be second nature—and repetitive training is the best way to make it second nature. .
Phase 3
Surprise Mayday training. We have had several training sessions that require us to get in our gear and crawl around. Some were live fire; some were just crawling through the bedrooms with the lights off. We would randomly grab a crew member and pull him aside and see how long it took for the rest of the crew to notice he was missing. Or, we would latch onto a boot as it scooted by and prevented forward movement. To our delight, each time we did this, the crews recognized the issue and went through the motions of calling for help. They started catching on to our antics and would anticipate something was coming, but they still got to develop that muscle memory of calling it in. Repetitive training, over and over until it becomes second nature!
You can do every bit of the training listed above without costing your city a dime. You have the props; look around the station, and get creative! We have also started a new training idea that I stole from the Internet. I went to Wal-Mart and had custom metal dog tags printed from the machine at the front of the store. These machines are also at pet stores. I had MAYDAY printed on one line and “You’re Lost” or “Roof Collapse” on the line below. These tags were clipped to my radio strap with a metal ring. Every so often when we were on a fire alarm or a medical call deep within the local nursing home, I would hand this tag to someone and have that person give me a Mayday from where he was standing. Once you were given the tag and called a complete Mayday, you could hand the tag to someone else. It was fun to see where people would pick to hand out the tags. This lets you get in a quick bit of Mayday training without having to go out of your way to set up a special training scenario.
Finally, every chance you get to review an actual Mayday call, sit down and listen to it. Talk about what you think went wrong and “tabletop” some solutions to the problems they faced. You can learn a lot from the mistakes that were made, and many times you can pick up on things that they did right. Fortunately, this isn’t a situation that happens every day. But you have to get out of the mindset that it can’t happen to you. This is a high-risk, low-frequency situation, and you have to take it seriously.
BIO
JOHN WRIGHT is a 17-year veteran of the fire service and a captain assigned to Station 3 of the Flower Mound (TX) Fire Department, where he has served for 15 years. He was a volunteer firefighter for the Huntsville (TX) Fire Department and is a certified hazmat technician, a fire instructor II, an advanced firefighter, a driver/operator, and a licensed paramedic. He has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Sam Houston State University and an associate degree in paramedicine from North Central Texas College
