SECOND CLASS SCOUT

Get Help!

If you encounter a swimmer in need, take a few seconds to assess the sit- uation and remember your training. Remain calm. Someone else might have already started a rescue. If so, stand out of the way and be ready to help. Pinpoint the victim's position from shore. Make sure medical aid has been summoned if needed. Keep curious bystanders from interfering with the rescue effort. If no one else is attempting a rescue, then you must act quickly.

As a Second Class Scout, you will be prepared to give reaching or throwing assistance. Usually this is all that is needed. If reaching or throwing assistance is impossible, then you should get help! Help might be a boat that could get you or someone else close enough to reach or throw to the victim. First, be sure to put on a life jacket, then row to within throwing or reaching distance of the victim. When you are firmly braced in the boat, extend an oar or paddle or throw a flotation device for the victim to grab. If you cannot reach, throw, or use a boat, yell or go for help.

Only in rare situations will a swim- ming rescue be the only choice. After you have completed Lifesaving merit badge, you will be prepared to use swimming rescue methods if they are ever needed. But you will also understand the danger of being in the water with a panicky or unconscious drowning victim, and you will continue to make every effort to avoid attempting a swimming rescue. Even when a swimming rescue is attempted, the rescuer should always take with him something that can be used for flotation or extended to the victim in order to avoid direct contact. Getting entangled wit11 a drowning victim is a sure way to get in trouble. Don't put yourself in danger. If reaching and throwing don't work, get help!