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The Boy Scout Brigade is a worldwide organization and the rules of membership may vary slightly from country to country, but the basics of scouting are the same everywhere. One of the tenets of scouting is to ‘Be Prepared’ and being prepared involves being willing to help others in distress, which also includes First Aid.

Boy Scouts are encouraged to earn badges such as the First Aid badge, there are also badges denoting different levels of ability. One of the items that a scout learns whilst training for his first First Aid badge is how to put together a personal First Aid kit.

A typical basic Boy Scout’s First Aid kit will include such things as soap, bandages, plasters, iodine, scissors, matches, tweezers and safety pins. At a higher level, the kit may get supplemented with a triangular bandage, insect repellent, talcum powder, aspirins or paracetamol, gloves and a mouthpiece for giving artificial respiration.

A scout and particularly a sea scout will learn how to put a person in the coma position and will also be shown how to pump water out of a body recovered from the water.

The First Aid training that Boy Scouts receive now has been upgraded many times over the last fifty years due to advances in medical treatment and the explosion of aids and other contagious diseases.

Scouts lead a very active existence and are always building structures and climbing. This means that there are quite a few sprains and broken bones among scouts, so it is not surprising that caring for fractured bones features highly in their First Aid training.

In fact, one of the first items that a cub or a scout is taught is how to utilize their neckerchief as a triangular bandage to support a broken arm and how to fold it in order to tie splints to a broken leg.

Scouts going for higher degree First Aid badges will be taught more detailed courses which might include how and when to apply CPR; how to recognize a victim of stroke or heart attack; what to do if someone is undergoing an epileptic fit; what to do if someone is unconscious or suffering from concussion; how to deal with shock and much more.

Lord Baden Powell founded the Boys Scout Brigade as a sort of preliminary to going into the army, but it has not been regarded like that for numerous decades. Nowadays the scouts give boys (and sometimes girls) and teenagers the opportunity to do things that they otherwise would never have the opportunity to experience – activities like boating, canoing, camping, map-reading et cetera.

These activities put the children at a higher risk of injury, but the scouting organization counters that increased danger by training all their boys in First Aid and both the activities and the First Aid training remains with them for the rest of their lives. It has with me and I will always be grateful to the Boy Scouts for the things they taught me and allowed me to experience.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many topics, but is currently concerned with First Aid trainer courses. If you have an interest in RC vehicles, please come over to our website now at First Aid Courses Online.

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