Cub Scout troops participate in annual Freeze-Out event

January 29, 2012 at 12:06a.m.

CANFIELD

If you had to rescue someone on a sled trapped on thin ice, what would you do?

On Saturday, several groups of Cub Scouts became better equipped to answer that question while learning perhaps the most valuable rescue tool: working as a team.

“It was fun because people were pulling me and fun getting pulled back,” said 7-year-old Brendan Danes of Newton Falls, who’s a member of Cub Scout Pack 70 of Deerfield in Portage County.

Brendan learned basic first-aid skills during a sled-rescue demonstration, one of four activities that made up Saturday’s Cub Scout Freeze-Out 2012 gathering at Camp Stambaugh, 3712 Leffingwell Road.

The annual gathering continues from 8 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. next Saturday at the camp.

Sponsoring the event is the Whispering Pines District Greater Western Reserve Council Boy Scouts of America. Youngstown-based Cub Scout Pack 22 is serving as host.

An estimated 150 boys age 6 to 11 took part in Saturday’s event, designed to allow the youngsters to have fun, build character and learn safety techniques with an emphasis on teamwork, noted Chuck Shasho, Pack 22’s leader.

Brendan, a student at the Southeast School District’s Primary School near Ravenna, listed camping as his most enjoyable Scouting activity.

Also looking forward to being “rescued” on a purple saucer that simulated a sled was Gage Williams, 7, a fellow Pack 70 member who also attends the primary school.

“I wanted to have fun because that sounds so good,” an excited Gage said about his main reason for joining the Cub Scouts.

Conducting the one-hour first-aid session was Byron Harnishfeger, scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 60 of Boardman, who demonstrated certain rope-throwing techniques to rescue a person stranded on a sled on a body of water.

Harnishfeger implored the boys to toss their taut topes beyond, not to, the victims, and showed them how those needing rescued should place the looped rope around their bodies to be pulled to safety. He also showed his audience proper ways to recoil a rope in the event a toss misses the intended person.

“We’re trying to expose them to some skills they’ll use a lot of,” added Alan Scannell, a Pack 22 leader who also teaches courses in cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

In addition, the Scouts were introduced to basic first-aid concepts such as getting an adult to help with rescues, as well as learning to correctly loop a rope.

At another station, groups of boys did their best to stay on task — and target — by using a combination of dog-food pieces, slingshots and aluminum pie pans.

That’s because they took turns aiming at the pans that had been placed on two square pieces of plywood next to a series of playing cards that acted as smaller but more challenging targets.

The other two stations were an obstacle course and a leather-making event in which the Scouts used wooden mallets and stamping tools to create and emboss various patterns in pieces of leather.

At the end of the day, the boys received patches in the shape of the state of Alaska for their accomplishments and teamwork.