We went swimming to Green Canyon yesterday Dec. 13, 2014. Notice there is no snow on the ground. It has been a weird warm year so far. From left to right: Kaleb, Antonio, Chase, Carson, Ben and Andrew. Not shown is Dalton who left with his dad a little earlier.
We all met at my house at 11:30 am on Saturday. We all loaded up in my suburban, said a prayer and off we went. They all got a permission slip from their parents so we were legal. We got there a little after 12:00, paid our money and got changed. The changing rooms at Green Canyon are sans doors so it was a little weird for them as most of the boys had not been here before.
Our goal was to complete the swimming requirements for the Second Class Rank. Those requirements are to jump in water over your head, swim 25 feet and then turn around and swim back. Different strokes can be used. The second requirement was to demonstrate ways to rescue somebody if they are drowning. The methods used are to lay down and outstretch a hand, use a long pole or stick or rope for victims further out.
We started out with a bang by immediately having to perform a rescue. We had gotten our swimsuits on and I was making sure everybody was out of the dressing room and their clothes were put away in the window. The boys had taken off and were already at the deep end. As I started walking toward them I saw them pile into the water like a bunch of penguins who'd been on land a long time. As I got to the halfway point I realized something didn't look right. I looked again as I rounded the corner scanning for each boy. I saw Andrew smiling and treading water and Carson was doing the same thing. Then there was Chase and Dalton both treading water just fine and Ben was already in his own world which must be heaven when he was swimming. Kaleb was over on the ladder. That left Antonio. Yep he was the thing that was not right. He must have been last in line to jump in as he was at the far end. I had to take a second look to make sure I was seeing correctly. Yep, he was flailing his arms and bobbing up and down gulping and spitting. He had a deer in the headlights look of panic on his face. I'm sure my mind was in hyperdrive and everything was in slow motion as I sat and pondered the situation. I noticed he wasn't making any sound and I thought that was weird as I thought drowning victims made a lot of noise. Then I remembered the training video I had watched prior to coming and it had said they don't make any noise. Shows you how much TV and movies are false. I walked up to Antonio and said, "Antonio grab my hand". He didn't quite register me so I yelled, "ANTONIO GRAB MY HAND!!" That snapped him out of it and he then saw me and I yanked him out. He was full of water and air and coughed and spluttered for awhile while catching his breath. At least it wasn't as bad as the last kid I saved. I pulled that kid out of a waste water and manure pit from a milk barn. That kid had swallowed a lot worse than Antonio did and had to go to the hospital to get his stomach pumped.
Unfortunately I don't think any of the other scouts saw it unfolding so I didn't get to use it for an example. I don't want to embarrass Antonio but it taught me a couple things about drowning victims and to be more observant with my eyes and not so much my ears. Also if any of you scouts read this we did one thing wrong and that was not assigning buddies. This is something we need to do better in the future. We need to all rally around Antonio and see if we can't help him swim that requirement.
After Antonio was ok he asked if he could go to the shallow end for awhile. I said ok but I would call him back after we did the 25 ft. swim. I called all the boys up on the side and we figured the width of the pool was about right. Ben went first and swam forward and back just fine. Then I think Andrew and Carson went and both did pretty good. Next was Chase and Dalton. Dalton came back in a straight line but Chase was on his back coming back and was kinda starting to drift a little. Pretty soon he was making a trail like the letter J and was sailing away toward the shallow side. He kept a going and I could tell he wasn't sure why it was taking him so long to reach the wall. Then he hit one of the ropes and realized where he was. He had a funny look on his face but he smiled when I told him he had gone the farthest. Kaleb was last to go and made it all the way forward but was rapidly tiring on the way back. He grabbed the wall a couple feet before the ladder but I feel the length was a little longer than 25 ft anyway so I passed him off. Kaleb has improved tremendously on his swimming over the last year. I can relate a lot to Kaleb as he reminds me a lot of myself when I was trying to pass these swimming requirements. Actually he did better than I did. I really struggled even though I took swimming lessons and had a year of swimming in college. After we were done with everything I got in and swam it as well but I was really huffing and puffing. I'm turning into a fat old lunker.
A couple boys then jumped in the water to pretend like they were drowning and we pulled them in with the hand method. Then we tried the stick method and the rope method and the boys traded off rescuing and drowning. When I felt they understood it good enough I let them have free time. I had Antonio come back and practice the rescue methods so at least he was able to pass that off. They all were able to pass off that requirement.
For free time we played games then sat in the hot tub and then played games. I saw my neighbor Travis was in the hot tub and talked to him awhile. Carson had gotten a ball so we played a little basketball. Then we had chicken wars. I'm not sure what the boys call it but thats what we called it when I was a scout. Its where a boy gets on another's shoulders and then try to push over another pair of boys into the water. They played it for awhile and then I jumped in. Chase was first on my shoulders and we made a formidable team. Then most of them took a turn on me. When Ben was on my shoulders we were unstoppable.
After a couple hours we decided to get out. We got dressed and most of us had a sack lunch. Some of us got a hamburger and some drinks and snacks. Dalton's dad ate with us as well. It was funny watching what the boys selected for a treat. Andrew got both a grape and an orange soda and some candy. Then later he said he might not make it to church because he had eaten so much candy. When it was time to go I herded them all outside so I could get at least one picture of them. They were whining because they thought it was cold. Hmmm. 40 degrees in December here is not cold.
On the drive home Ben promptly fell asleep. I dropped them all off one by one. I hope they had a good time and learned a lot. It was a fun day.
No comments:
Post a Comment