While there were no major (or minor) accidents at the Lyons Township High School’s South Campus Saturday, plenty of help was on hand if someone had succumbed to a sudden broken leg or burn.
All morning Boy Scouts from the Portage Creek Scouting District held their annual first aid competition at the Corral, meaning troops showed off months of practice treating wounds, stabilizing the injured and generally keeping calm while judges marked, ranked, and commented on technique and ability.
The event is something more than a competition. It’s the culmination of months (or more) of training for skills that could be used almost anywhere, including at home, but that could save a life on the trail. The event is also a chance for the scouts to meet and chat with professional EMT workers and consider a career in the industry. It’s part theater, part applied skills, part career fair and it’s fun — proven by the draw. Saturday saw some 80 scouts suit up in uniform, making the morning one of the biggest skills competitions in the district.
“These are life-saving skills, like how to treat for shock and how to use an AED and how to treat for common occurrences like sunburn, heat exhaustion, cuts, scrapes, blisters and things like that,” said Anthony Lewandowski, the first aid committee chair for the district. He is with Troop 33 out of La Grange, and besides his troop, he was overseeing competition from 10 other troops.
The first aid training is important to the program as many scouts will go off this summer to high-adventure camps, camps not always an easy distance to hospitals, clinics, and first responders. Miles from EMT services, out on a trail, the scouts have to be ready to know at least basic medical care, including how to be calm under pressure. So, at 20-minute intervals inside the Corral and under the watchful eyes of scoutmasters and EMTs, the troops work their way through over a dozen stations, each boy or girl proving they can handle virtually anything, should the going get rough.
“What’s exciting about it is just the ability to do just practical skills,” said Lewandowski. “What makes it great is our partnership with Loyola Medicine, the Superior Ambulance Company and the Western Springs Fire Department means we have those folks here who can help with the training.”
The professionals were also on hand to talk to the scouts about careers in medicine if they liked the feel of Saturday’s competition. Spencer Bourn, a member of the Explorer Scouts program, said he got interested in the fire and EMS specialty program after he met with the professionals as a student at LTHS. Gately, one of the speakers Saturday, answered questions from Boy Scouts about the benefits of a targeted program like the Explorers, explaining he heard about the group during a cafeteria presentation in school one day.
Bourn said if Scouts liked what they were learning, a targeted program like the Explorers could help them decide if they wanted to pursue a career in the field and, in any case, it wouldn’t hurt on a resume. The Explorer Scouts accept members up to 20 years old, a couple of years older than the traditional Boy Scout program.
“It’s made me an amazing person,” Bourn said. “It’s allowed me to help my community in more ways than one.”
He said his post gets to train to fight fires alongside professional firefighters and take part in controlled burns and even use the facilities at the state’s Firefighting Service Institute in Champaign once a year.
“If you focus on one goal and you do everything you need to do to get that goal, you can do great things with your life,” he said.
Of course, even if the participants don’t get drawn into the career path of a first responder, and even if not every scout winds up deep in the woods somewhere with a friend who’s broken a leg or suffered a bad cut, the day is still valuable. First aid can come in handy anywhere and at any time.
“I think it’s an exciting opportunity to be out here,” explained Lewandowski. “It provides our scouts with real life-saving skills they can use down the road.
Jesse Wright is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
