Overheated during OA ceremony

[funscout]

My son overheats VERY easily and the whole troop knows this, since he has suffered from heat exhaustion on at least 3 camp-outs. This is my son's 3rd year at camp, so he knew what to expect, but still, he got heat exhaustion.

 

Son was afraid to take a drink from his water bottle during the OA ceremony, since he saw boys getting yelled at for not standing still. He started to wobble, and started to lose hearing, as he became heat exhausted. The boy next to him asked, "What's wrong?" Son could see the boy's lips moving, but couldn't hear him, so he said, "What?" Other boy asked 3 times, with the same result, before going to get the Scoutmaster. SM immediately knew it was heat exhaustion, so he said, "Take a drink from your water bottle." Son couldn't hear, and said, "What?" So, SM pointed to his water bottle, and mimed drinking. Then he led my son away from the ceremony and let him sit.

 

My husband and I are realizing that the boys need a refresher course in recognizing heat exhaustion. We are glad that the other scout at least went for the SM pretty quickly.

[Eamonn]

Our Sea Scouts tease me a lot for always seeming to be getting on at them to drink lots of water and put on more sun screen!!

Sometimes I don't even have to say a word and they hit me with "I know drink more water and lather up"

Before last years Jambo I thought it was important, but having seen so many Scouts in pain due to not drinking enough, I'm now like a broken record.

This summer on the personal equipment list we added a big floppy hat and sun glasses.

Next year we are adding T-shirts with sleeves!!

One Lad brought only sleeveless black T-shirts. He is a big Lad (XXL)

I'm not very big and wear a med or a large shirt, but we squeezed him into a large.

Some of our Scouts especially the girls thought I was being a little over the top when I told them to check the color of their urine!!

Eamonn.

[ScoutNut]

Recognizing the signs of heat exhaustion is fine, but preventing it is much better. It sounds to me like a refresher course in preventing heat illness is what is needed here.

 

Some things to do to help your body regulate it's temperature -

 

#1 - DRINK LOTS OF FLUIDS!! 16-32 ounces of cool (not cold) fluids PER HOUR. Do NOT wait until you are thirsty to drink. By then your body is already starting to get dehydrated. (Eamonn is right, the paler the urine the better - try for clear!)

 

No drinks with caffeine or lots of sugar. Sports drinks are good because they replace minerals lost sweating.

 

Wear sunscreen! Broad spectrum SPF 15 or higher.

 

Wear loose, light colored clothes. Wear sunglasses & a hat with a wide brim all around. A floppy hat is good because it not only shades your head & face, but you can wet it down to help keep your head cooler. Wet down your Scout necker too.

 

Limit sun exposure. Stay in the shade as much as possible.

 

Pace yourself & rest often in the shade. If your heart starts to pound &/or you feel confused or lightheaded, STOP, DRINK, & rest in shade, or better yet, air conditioning.

 

Use the buddy system.

 

Preventing heat related illness is not a responsibility you can relegate to someone else. It is up to every individual to use common sense & know what to do to keep themselves cool.

[funscout]

Thanks for the refresher course! My son knows that he needs to drink more water than the other boys, but in this case he was afraid of getting yelled at. Our SM told him that next time, he should drink, even if he does get yelled at, since it's more important to stay healthy, than to avoid being yelled at.

 

My son gets frustrated that his buddies never get heat exhaustion, even though he drinks more water than they do. Maybe it's due to the fact that he's a red-head, is skinny, and fair-skinned, and he's of Norwegian ancestry! He and I both prefer cold weather to hot weather!

 

This year our camp used colored flags to let the boys know what the temp. was, and each color of flag signified how much water they should be drinking in a certain amount of time.

[SR540Beaver]

We highly discourage hydration systems like Camelbaks because we can't monitor the boy's intake of water. We prefer nalgene bottles so we can actually SEE that they are drinking. We've had one too many scouts tell us they are drinking water only to find out they are not when they become dehydrated. Like Eamonn, I too got to enjoy the warmth of Virginia in July at Jambo and saw first hand what can happen.....even when you do drink plenty of water. I started praying on a regular basis after Jambo because I want to go to Heaven after experiencing a little hell on Earth....and I'm from Oklahoma! My son does a great job of staying hydrated. One of his buddies who crossed over with him from Webelos would dehydrate on almost every campout. First he would have headaches and want to lay down. He would spend much of the evening in his tent and skip dinner (along with cooking and KP) and then get up and throw up in the middle of camp. You'd think that if you beat your head against a wall long enough, you'd eventually learn not to do it. Not this boy.....sick almost every campout. My son saw that and decided rather quickly that he'd prefer to drink water and enjoy the campout as opposed to being sick and throwing up. The other boy ended up leaving scouts rather than learn to drink water and enjoy himself.

 

Our summer camp SM gave the boys the old drink plenty of water speech and told them about "clear and plentiful" urine. I got a kick out of two of our new boys. I passed them on the road between the waterfront and scoutcraft and they both gave me a thumbs up with a big grin and yelled, "Mr. Beav, clear and plentiful!!!"

[funscout]

I'm curious what other Councils do for OA ceremonies. Ours last several hours and the scouts have to stand the whole time. Since the boys get yelled at for not standing completely still, then that means no one is drinking water for all those hours.

 

My son now knows he'll just have to get yelled at, in order to stay healthy. The only other thing he could do is wear one of the back-pack drinking systems. He used one his first year at camp, but he wasn't good enough at cleaning it and the tubing got moldy. He didn't overheat that summer, but I shudder to think that he was drinking out of a moldy tube!

[SR540Beaver]

"This year our camp used colored flags to let the boys know what the temp. was, and each color of flag signified how much water they should be drinking in a certain amount of time."

 

funscout,

 

This was the same method used at Jambo. The flag was flown at or near the Health Tent in each sub-camp. When the red flag went up, all activities were suspended and you were expected to find a shady spot and drink, drink, drink.

[nldscout]

Funscout,

I can't imagine why OA ceremony would take anywhere near that long and if its hot and they , those running ceremony, should no better than to subject young scouts to standing there with allowing them to drink. When the first scout is injured or worse dies from a heat injury, then the fingerpointing will start.

 

When I was SM I always made sure the Ordeal candidates had water with then, I looked at that as part of my responsibility and I would have challanged anyone who yelled a a scout for trying to stay hydrated.

[funscout]

One problem for the lengthy ceremony is that the OA guys (I'm showing my ignorance here!) had trouble finding the boys to be tapped out. In our case, our scoutmaster is shorter than several of our scouts, so he wasn't visible standing behind the scout to be tapped out. Maybe we need to have a taller leader take his place next year! I'm not sure why they had trouble finding other troops' boys. Maybe we had lots of short SMs this year! (I'm thinking of a skit the boys could do with one of them playing the SM, jumping up and waving his hands to try to be seen!)

 

nldscout - I sent a PM to you from the other topic (rifle shooting age). Let me know if you don't get it.

[scoutldr]

As the Army says, "Peeing white, ready to fight!"

[MaScout]

Our OA team determined that they were done with such long ceremonies. We had SM's who wanted to keep up the suspense and wouldn't mark the candidates until late -- like the 5th or 6th pass. Their solution? They hold a SM's meeting and tell them they will make three passes to collect candidates. Troops are to show 1/3 of their Scouts each pass. On their 4th, "clearing" pass, they will not collect any more scouts. They had to get tough with the SM's, but it worked! And everyone really appreciates the shorter time frame!

[SR540Beaver]

nldscout,

 

Long ceremonies? Do I have a story for you. We went out of council for summer camp two years ago. Great camp with a great program and obviously a very active OA. Like most camps, Friday was family day. The evening started off with a campfire program. At the end of the campfire, 3 indians come down the river in a canoe. They stop on the opposite bank to ignite a large arrow on a frame. They then come across the river to the campfire where they speak. They lead the entire camp down a trail lined by indians holding torches across camp to their OA ring. Visitors go to a grandstand overlooking the ring. The ring has benches that will seat probably 500 scouts and scouters. They had to keep directing people to squeeze around the ring to get everyone in. No sitting until everyone is in the ring. This took forever to get everyone in. Finally, we get to sit. At the middle of the ring is a fire lay about 12 feet tall. We are asked to stand and the fire is ignited with much pageantry. The call out begins by three guys going around the ring of 500 people. We've all been asked to stand and take 3 steps in. This crowds everyone shoulder to shoulder, but allows SM's to walk behind and point out those being called out. Those doing the call out probably circled the ring 6 or 7 times. Understand, this ring seems about the size of a football field. We kept being instructed to look into the fire. I don't know the actual time, but it seemed like it took HOURS from the time we left the campfire until the ceremony was over.....98% of it standing and most people had daypacks with them. It was absolutely the most impressive OA call out ceremony I'd ever seen...and the most miserable. I had to take 3 of our new boys out to find a "latrine" tree line as they were beginning to do a little dance of their own during the ceremony. Being out of council, if we'd known the ceremony were that long, we'd probably have passed. My back was killing me by the end.

[funscout]

MaScout,

 

Your explanation about some SMs waiting to point out their scouts is probably what happened at our ceremony. That would explain why the OA guys went around the circle so many times. In our troop, as I mentioned, it was a case of a too short SM.

[packsaddle]

I really identify with Eamonn's post. When we're on saltwater for extended times we require hats, sunscreen, t-shirts with sleeves, and lots of drinking water. The boys line up front to back and apply the sunscreen to each other. Kind of like baboons grooming each other. No, what am I saying....EXACTLY like it.

 

This year at camp, we had nearly constant rain the whole week so heat exhaustion wasn't exactly a problem but on other outings we soak the t-shirts to keep cool. Great water fights. But the female leaders don't seem so enthusiastic for some reason.

[Beavah]

SR540, I'd encourge you to rethink your camelback policy, eh? Our experience has been that being able to sip whenever they felt like it (rather than stop and dig out a water bottle when being told) greatly increases the amount of water kids and adults drink. Da problem then is fillin' up the camelbacks. For funscout's son, he could have been sippin' without fear of disrupting the ceremony.

 

funscout, the history of heat illness you describe merits some further investigation. Yah, your son may be more sensitive than others, but by the time he's checkin' out the other boys should be on the edge or at least pretty durn uncomfortable. There's either a big behavioral difference (drinkin' a lot less, wearin' different clothes, bein' lots more physically active, not gettin' enough salt or carbohydrates) or there might be an underlyin' medical condition which merits some additional testing and follow-up with your physician. It's at least worth lookin' into a bit more.