What I Didn’t Do

I'm sitting here enjoying a hot cup of coffee on the patio after an over two-week absence. As I take in the sights and sounds around the patio, my thoughts are scrolling through the various lessons I took from my time as Lead Adult Crew Advisor for my group of scouts during our time at Philmont.  Lessons about over packing, lessons about mental and physical preparation, lessons about personalities. In all my thinking, I completely overlooked the biggest lesson of our trek.

Summiting Baldy at Philmont is the climactic event for many who attend. The individual lessons each scout and scouter learn during their ascent are life changing in many cases. Little did we know on that Saturday morning in July that we would take more than personal, unseen, unspoken lessons from the peak with us.

Our crew was made of the typical mix of hikers: the athletes, the wheel horses that put their head down and slogged forth, and the laggards taxed by the thin air at 10,000 feet.

I watched with amazement as one of our scouts ascended the steep, rocky path that was the ending portion of the climb to the summit. He was so agile and quick that I called him the crew Mountain Goat.

I was 10 yards from the crest of the last path to the summit, the final member of our crew, taxed by the thin air like the rest of the stragglers, when our crew leader, my son, came running, sliding down the path, saying we had a problem. I told him to get the other adult since he was closer, already on the summit.

When I finished the last few yards, I dropped my trekking poles and threw off my pack when I saw one of our scouts, the Mountain Goat, lying on the peak of Baldy surrounded by scouts. He was gasping for air.

Interestingly, the scene around the Mountain Goat was not panicking. The scouts, led by a crew member trained as an EMT, began to make him comfortable and address his cold body. They used packs as support to keep his torso upright and covered him with a space blanket over jackets. We even had a beanie on his head.

Then the unregistered EMT in our crew started treating him while I supervised and communicated with the infirmary at base camp.

As the scout lay on Baldy, as comfortable as we could make him, we waited. I called base camp with updates. Every time I spoke, they said we needed to walk him down. Every time, he was not stable enough to stand.

As this was unfolding, one of our younger scouts was sitting, watching the clouds form. I saw this and asked him to be our weatherman. His job was to let me know if those ominous dark rain clouds formed.

After an update call where my contact once again implored us to get him down, I looked at our weatherman, and our eyes met. Without words, he told me the afternoon storms typical of Mount Baldy were coming.

We couldn't wait any longer. I acted as incident commander, allowing the EMT-trained crew member to control the scout's care while I stayed in contact with the infirmary at base camp and coordinated our move down.

My other adult crew advisor descended ahead of us with the four scouts not needed for the evacuation, and waited for us. Two scouts held him under each arm, one in front and one behind to catch him if there was a fall. Another scout carried excess gear, while a second scouted obstacles in the path. I walked alongside, ready to help in case of a fall, encouraging as we moved.

We met Philmont staff part way down. The scout was wheezing, and their assessment on the trail confirmed some bronchial constraint. When they took his oxygen level, it was between 87 and 89 as we continued descending, and it remained that low when we reached the staff camp.

On the summit and the descent, no one panicked. Scouts jumped into their assigned roles, and we got him off the mountain to the staff camp.

There, treatment started with an albuterol inhaler, followed by an epinephrine shot. I remained with him until he was in the vehicle leaving for base camp. I never got a final diagnosis, since the scout's father arrived at base camp and took him home.

We did good.

Looking back, I realize I got the story wrong in my own head before I ever started writing it. I kept thinking about what everyone else did. The EMT who took control of his care. The weatherman who read the sky. The scouts who carried gear, cleared the path, and held him up on both sides. My fellow adult advisor who took four scouts ahead so we could move.

What I almost left out is what I didn't do.

I didn't treat him. I didn't carry him. I didn't clear the trail or read the clouds. When my son came running down that path, I sent him for the other adult instead of going myself. When base camp kept telling me to walk him down, I stayed on the phone and trusted what I was seeing instead. When Philmont staff met us on the trail, I handed him over without a fight.

That's not a list of things I failed to do. That's the job. An incident commander who tries to do everyone's task at once isn't leading, he's just another set of hands, and a crew only has so many of those.

After all, my job as lead advisor was not to do but to keep my boys safe. I did that by staying out of the way while orchestrating an impromptu symphony.

Be prepared is the scout motto, and I've written about the line between that motto and paranoia. In the case of our crew, everyone was Wilderness First Aid and CPR Certified, not just the three minimum required by Philmont. That preparation paid off in spades that Saturday at 12,441 feet.

That evening after supper, when we had a chance to finally catch our collective breath, we did not celebrate what we did. We didn't complain about missing our shower time. We didn't even complain about the added aches and pains. Instead, we worried about the Mountain Goat, and we were comforted that we were prepared. Comforted because we did good.