HAMPTON — The Boy Who Cried Wolf may be a timeless tale, but the Coast Guard is not amused by the local Man Who Cries Mayday.
"Every time he's doing this, he's putting multiple lives at risk, not just Coast Guard crews but the boating community," said Petty Officer Etta Smith. "When we're responding to a case that's not real, it affects our time getting to a real emergency."
Over the past three weeks, the Coast Guard has responded to three distress calls in Hampton from what appears to be the same man, Smith said. Last Thursday, the man claimed his boat was sinking after striking rocks near the Hampton bridge and that people were in the water, according to radio transmissions. But the Coast Guard and other boaters in the area found no trace of the vessel.
The man made similar calls on Sept. 26 and Sept. 14, with response teams and good Samaritans finding no boats in distress either time. All of the searches were expensive, Smith said, with the Sept. 14 search costing more than $54,000.
Coast Guard emergency calls have three levels: Securite, which is the lowest level and typically used for warnings about navigational hazards; Pan-pan, which means a boat is in distress but not in imminent danger; and Mayday, which means the boat is sinking or sunk and the crews' lives are in immediate danger. The life-threatening nature of Mayday calls means they receive the highest priority and the most resources.
Making false distress calls to the Coast Guard is a felony, punishable by up to six years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Monetary loss is the least of concerns, Smith said. False alarms put responding crews at risk and can take the Coast Guard away from people who actually are in distress.
Newburyport Harbormaster Ralph Steele said when rescue teams respond to distress calls, they risk accidents of their own, which would be especially horrifying if they were responding to a hoax.
"People don't think at times of the consequences of an emergency vehicle responding to a situation," Steele said. "If someone gets hurt needlessly ... it's insane."
Smith said the person making the false reports sounds like a man in his 50s with a New England accent. She said the Coast Guard dealt with a similar situation in Vermont, but the culprit was a child, not an adult, playing with a radio.
"I can't imagine why someone would do it, and do it repeatedly," Smith said.
Smith said anyone with information about the false calls should call the Coast Guard's New England command center at 207-767-0303.
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