Revolutionizing Mental Health Support: The Game-changing Role of U.S. Navy SPRINT

FALLS CHURCH, VA, UNITED STATES

05.17.2024

Story by André B. Sobocinski, Historian 

U.S. Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery

Seven Sailors died, and 48 others were injured when the guided missile frigate USS Belknap (CG 26) and the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 67) collided 70 miles off the coast of Sicily while performing night-time exercises on Nov. 22, 1975.

For years, the traumatic experience of that collision scarred many Sailors who escaped physical injury but carried the invisible weight of the tragedy.

In early 1976, Navy psychiatrists at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth involved with the care of survivors from the Belknap accident began seeing an incidence of marital problems, alcoholism, anxiety, depression, and unexplained illnesses. Reviews of medical literature indicated that early and aggressive intervention would have more favorably altered the outcomes of similar disaster victims.

Recognizing the value of immediate short-term mental health support, a team of psychiatrists at Portsmouth spearheaded a unique program to meet this need. This new unit was called the Special Psychiatric Rapid Intervention Team, or SPRINT.

When a U.S. Coast Guard Cutter collided with an Argentinean merchant vessel in the Chesapeake Bay on Oct. 20, 1978, eleven of 29 crew members aboard the Coast Guard vessel died. After the survivors returned to their homeport in Yorktown, Virginia, the commanding officer of the Coast Guard Reserve Training Center (GGRTC) requested assistance from Capt. H. James Sears, the director of psychiatry at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth, who ordered the first SPRINT deployment.

“I was aboard CGRTC within two hours of the initial request,” said Dr. Thomas Carlton, then serving as SPRINT’s operations officer. “I met with the commanding officer, executive officer, senior medical officer, and other staff officers to explain our role, assess needs, and recommend appropriate prevention measures. The SPRINT was mobilized and reported to CGRTC the next morning.”

SPRINT interviewed the 18 accident survivors to determine their needs and provide support. SPRINT members also worked with friends, family, and co-workers of the 11 crewmembers who were lost. Over the course of 12 days, SPRINT documented 264 accountable contacts with 91 individuals. The mission was deemed highly successful.

“There has been no evidence of emotional or physical disability among the survivors to date,” said Carlton. “This was nothing short of astonishing in view of the existing literature on similar disasters.”

From the beginning, SPRINT’s founders knew the program’s success would rely upon well-rounded teams of experienced professionals. These multidisciplinary units typically included a psychiatrist, clinical psychologist, social worker, chaplain, psychiatric nurse, and behavioral health technician. Over the years, the teams varied in composition from place to place, and sometimes, there was more than one specialist.

The stigma associated with psychiatry in the 1970s was another factor in SPRINT’s multifaceted composition. “A lot of people don’t like to talk to a psychiatrist, but they do not mind talking to a chaplain, social worker, or a nurse,” Sears later related.

Among the charter members of the first deployed SPRINT were Lt. Cmdr. Charles R. Parker, a Navy chaplain with combat experience in Vietnam, and civilian social worker Aaron Dotson. Dotson had served as a uniformed social worker in the Army and retired as a colonel. His military career extended back to World War II and included service with the famed 761st Tank Battalion.

Early SPRINT interventions targeted survivors of ship collisions and nautical mishaps, but there were also a few exceptions. A SPRINT was called in after a ship captain whose crew had threatened to commit mass suicide.

“The team went down, and we interviewed a large number of the crew and some of the more senior people aboard the ship,” Sears later remembered. “It turns out that there was a real morale problem aboard, but these were not bonafide suicides. This was the crew members’ attempt to get some relief from some of the onerous conditions aboard.”

In 1983, SPRINTs obtained charters at Naval Medical Centers in Portsmouth, Virginia, San Diego, California, and Bethesda, Maryland. Today, these locations remain a cornerstone of the SPRINT program.

For more than fifty years, SPRINTs have become the premier provider of short-term mental health support across the Navy. Among the spectrum of missions include deployments in the wake of natural disasters, military accidents, and suicides, such as the Beirut barracks bombing (1983), USS Iowa turret explosion (1989), the Exxon Valdez oil spill (1989), the USS Cole attack (2000), September 11th (2001), the Virginia Tech and Washington Navy Yard shootings (in 2007 and 2013, respectively), and the during the COVID pandemic.

Since their creation five decades ago, Navy SPRINTs have provided rapid mental health support to Sailors, are ready to respond to future disasters and extend a helping hand.

Historical Notes: Capt. (later Rear Adm.) H. James Sears, Lt. Cmdr. (later Rear Adm.) Richard I. Ridenour, Lt. Cmdr. (later Capt.) Antonio F.C. Reyes, Lt. Cmdr. (later Capt.) James L. Staiger and Lt. Cmdr. (later Capt.) Thomas G. Carlton were part of the team that developed the SPRINT concept. Ridenour’s wife Leslie has been credited for the “SPRINT” acronym. The quotes that appear in article are from interviews conducted with narrators in 2016.

Sears served 25 years in Navy Medicine retiring as deputy surgeon general/commander, Naval Medical Command (Bureau of Medicine and Surgery) in 1989. He passed away in November 2023 at the age of 86. Today, he is the namesake of the Rear Admiral H. James T. Sears Award, which is given annually to the leading mental health providers in the Navy.

• Date Taken: 05.17.2024
• Date Posted: 05.17.2024 09:53
• Story ID: 471541
• Location: FALLS CHURCH, VA, US