Every Tuesday night, our Boy Scout troop, troop 777, has a troop meeting. It is made up of an opening, when we do the Pledge of Allegiance, the scout oath and law, and an opening prayer. It is nice to have a troop made up a Christians. Then we go over the meeting plan and any announcements. Paul, our SPL (Senior Patrol Leader) is the highest youth leader in the troop. (Both in height and power)
Then we do a skill time where we help the TFC scouts (Target First Class, First Class is the half way rank in scouts. The ranks are Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, and then Life, which is what I am. Last is Eagle) we teach basic skills like lashings, map and compass, first aid, knife safety, etc.
Then we break into Troop Time where talk about upcoming events, reflections (talking about past events. The reflection is probably the most important part of an event, because it helps us understand what went well what didn't, how we should do things next time, ect.), and anything that needs to be talked about with the whole troop.
Then we go into patrol time. That's when the two patrols in the troop, the Nighthawks and Recon Patrol, split and talk about things that they need to talk about as a patrol. The patrol time is led by the patrol leader.
Then we do a game. We generally play capture the flag, man hunt or fox and hounds. If the weather is bad outside, we play steel the bacon.
Then we close.
This past week, we tried something different. Paul, who is in charge of the meeting, and my friends Jeremy, Greg, Mason, Ryan and myself went outside before the meeting to hide. We made a plan to do a first aid scenario to teach the younger guys about the importance of knowing their skills and having the proper equipment with them.
It started with Mason going inside and telling the leaders, quietly, what we were going to do. (I forgot to tell you that the plan was a secret. In fact, we were trying to trick the guys and make them think that it was real.) After Mason went in, Ryan went running in and said that everyone needed to get there flash lights and get outside ASAP.
Meanwhile, Paul went and laid down on the other side of a fence on a ledge leading into a sand pit.
When everyone came out, Greg, Jeremy and I all started yelling for Paul.
We split up into groups and started looking for Paul. One of the scouts, that was the reason for this drill, ended up finding him.
We got down to Paul and found out that he had a broken leg and was in shock. Paul was very convincing in his acting. I was almost even sure that he had a broken leg for a few minutes. We treated Paul for the broken leg and made a stretcher out of about 12 jackets. We put them under Paul, and carried him up a ledge, in the dark while it was raining. It felt like an Army Field Medic. When we got to the top, one of the adult leaders puts his hand on Paul’s head and said “Lord, heal this boy” and of course, Paul got up.
We had a lot of fun doing the first aid drill. I can’t wait till we do it again.
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