Re: Guide to Safe Scouting and Youth Protection Guidelines.
Blaine S Nay (b.nay@JUNO.COM)
Wed, 13 Aug 1997 19:23:36 EDT
On Tue, 12 Aug 1997 23:56:02 -0700 Dean Hayes <dhayes@SNOVALLEY.COM>
writes:
>Tuesday evening, one of my scouts, on the way to the swimming pool to
play
>in the Guerilla Ball tournament, fell and broke his ankle.
>
>We got him over to the camp's medical lodge by means of two person
carry,
>use of a folding chair and finally, getting a stretcher from the medic.
>(This scout is rather stout.) The medic said that it looked like a bad
>sprain, but you couldn't really tell without an X-ray.
>
>The nearest telephone to the camp is 16 miles away, The nearest
hospital
>is 60 miles. Given the late hour of the day, we kept the scout as
>comfortable as we could overnight with the plan of transporting him home
>the next day.
>
>The troop had 3 adults in camp, one of which had to leave on Wednesday
>anyway for work related reasons. As a group, we decided that it would
be
>best to have him take the scout home.
>
>Being the stickler for the rules that I am (My wife refers to this habit
as
>being anal retentive), I pointed out to all of the adults involved that
>this decision would cause a 1:1 adult/scout ratio and violate the youth
>protection guidelines. We decided that this was an emergency and was
>the best choice.
>
>On Wednesday, the leader drove to the nearest telephone and called the
>scout's parents to let them know what happened and got him home early
>enough so that the parents could take the scout to their doctor. At
this
>point we found out that the ankle was indeed broken.
>
It looks to me like you handled the situation very well. The injury
wasn't life or limb threatening, so waiting until the next day was a safe
alternative. Of course the judgment of the medic on site is important.
As far as the boy traveling alone with an adult -- I don't see a problem.
We have two-deep leadership for several reasons -- only one of which is
the avoidance of abuse (or allegations thereof). Another reason we have
more than one adult is so one can medevac the injured while leaving the
uninjured with adult supervision.
Blaine Nay; Silverdale, Washington
A Boy Scout for some 30 years...and a good ol' buffalo too!
b.nay@juno.com
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