The only option a rookie had would be to quit on the spot, literally desert their post.
There are very few rookies that would do that.
They would be labeled a coward, and be despised, and any rookie knows that.
I had maybe a year or a bit more on the job, and was in the main yard at Auburn prison (NY) one morning, standing next to the Sergeant's post. A call came in (Red Code) over the radio, to respond to the hospital, which was in the Admin Building of the prison...up front. All the male officers take off, leaving the Sergeant's post empty, and no other officers in the yard. I chose to stay, because the Sergeant's post is never supposed to be left empty when inmates are in the main yard. The incident was already under control by the time the group of officers got there, so they all returned to the yard. One of the officers who had been there 4-5 years longer than me came back and dressed me down for staying, called me a coward, etc. I knew what I had done was right, but I was never allowed to defend myself. And of course he labeled me a coward to all the other male officers.
Years later, I was a Sergeant at another prison by that time, and that same officer made Sergeant at my prison, and lo! and behold! the moron apologizes to me, telling me that I was right not to respond, because doing so would have left the main yard post empty, and admitted he'd been an a-hole at the time. He was still an a-hole in my eyes, because as a more senior officer, he should have realized that everyone leaving en masse from the yard was wrong, and had anything gone down while they were all gone, it would have been on them. There were no officers in the yard gun posts at the time because the full population wasn't in the yard at the time. They only had officers man the yard gun posts in the late afternoons and evenings when both yards were open.