12 year old Scout survives after building shelter!

[Scoutfish]

I've seen too many stories and links lately whenever something bad happens to a scouit or unit.

 

Here's something to counter that:

 

 

Scout Found After Building Tree Branch Shelter

 

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h25UQzxQX7fsfsYY02RwMYT36HHw?docId=b8b21377ebd04b34babdf34ec6b8a2c3

[dkurtenbach]

Except for the part about using the buddy system (he didn't, even after a leader cautioned him) and staying put if you are lost (he walked 8 or 9 miles, and he was found 4 miles from where he started).

 

Dan Kurtenbach

Fairfax, VA

[Scoutfish]

No, not the perfect scenario, but it wasn't a "scouter died" story and he did use a skill he learned to keep safe and alive in 31 degree weather.

 

[Basementdweller]

Utah again.

 

Just makes ya wonder what is going on there.

 

of course where I am at 4 miles in most cases will get you to a road.

[clemlaw]

>>>>>>No, not the perfect scenario, but it wasn't a "scouter died" story and he did use a skill he learned to keep safe and alive in 31 degree weather.

[Hal_Crawford]

The news also said he had no jacket, water or food. Three more mistakes--water being a huge one. Glad the scout is OK but his story isn't a good example of Be Prepared. His survival was more a matter of luck than training.

 

The best outcome of this would be if he uses his story to teach younger scouts in his troop how not to make those mistakes.

[raisinemright]

Our brand new troop of mostly first year scouts is going camping for the week starting Tuesday. My Scoutmaster Minute tomorrow is going to be reading Jared's story to the scouts and a discussion of what he did right and wrong. We're using it for a lesson.

[Scoutfish]

Well...I suppose I could say that : If everybody did everything they were supposed to do, and do it exactly right...then there wouidn't be a reason to have any of those skills taught in the first place.

 

But, as we all know - scouts as well as leaders do not always do everything just right. Sometimes we plan, but somehow forget this or that, get caught in the moment and think something doesn't aply to us or we are above making a mistake.

 

Maybe that scout figured he walked that route 3 or 4 times without getting lkost and figured there was no reason to have a buddy with him.

 

I really can't say what went wrong. But once it did go wrong, the scout used skils that he learned in scouting ands it paid off.

 

The point isn't that he was a perfect scout, but that he learned a skill, used it when needed , and it worked as we are not reading about another fatality in scouting.

[shortridge]

There was a similar incident at my home camp a few years back. (I was on staff but was off that week at a YMCA conference and missed the fun.) The Scout took a shortcut, or what he thought was a shortcut, between main camp and a base camp. Like this Scout, he went without a buddy. He ended up spending the night lost in the woods with very little in the way of equipment. It seems to usually be those "I know my way around here" moments that get ya.

 

(Side note: The father of my then-girlfriend was one of the volunteer firefighters who went out looking for this kid on the camp's 1,400 acres. I heard about it when I called her from North Carolina and she said "Yeah, some kid named Chris got lost on some wilderness survival thing." While that turned out to be wrong, I had a fleeting period of panic ... the name of the staffer filling in teaching my Wilderness Survival class that week was also Chris, and I had a mental image of an entire group of Scouts lost in the swamps on an overnight, and of me strangling him upon my return.)

[Tampa Turtle]

As it has been said this incident presents a teachable moment. Was not prepared and did not follow all the steps. However by building a shelter he did something which is better than nothing and he wisely stayed put at night. Glad he lives to tell the tale.

[Beavah]

Yah, I wouldn't be too hard on the lad. Who among us hasn't occasionally gotten a wee bit turned around, eh? Now me, I've never been lost, though I have been a might confused for day or two.

 

Yeh don't really figure out what to do when lost until you've been lost, eh?

 

Beavah

 

[Engineer61]

Wait ... Utah?

 

Again?

 

 

[gcnphkr]

I always know where I am, I just have no idea where I am going.

 

I'm glad the scout is safe.

[Tampa Turtle]

At summer camp I took the "social trail" shortcut to the shower-house. It was through the woods, in the rain, at night. Oh course I did not take a flashlight (its just up the hill!). Man it was pitch black and I got really lost. I couldn't been more than 50-100 yards from the edge of the woods on 3 sides but went the wrong way. Eventually some boys from my troop wandered by and I followed them.