Boy Scout Troop 325 Scoutmaster Minute
March 2, 2010
Andy Duprey, Scoutmaster
Scouts, every one of you can tell me, without thinking, what the two words on the Second Class pin are. That's right, "Be prepared."
Sebastian Beasley may be only 14, but he's a lifesaver.
Sebastian, a member of Boy Scout Troop 51 in Methuen, was working with an Assistant Scoutmaster on a project on the banks of the Spicket River in Salem, N.H., when Lajoie was pinned under water. "I was cutting some trees," Lajoie said.
Sebastian was pulling away the brush that Lajoie was cutting. Lajoie said he had stood at that spot several times with no problem, but when he reached up to cut a branch with the chain saw he was using, a board that had been supporting a pile of construction debris snapped, causing the pile to collapse and sending Lajoie 15 feet below into the 4-foot deep water.
He was able to push the chain saw away from him. As he fell into the water, he battled the powerful water. "The current was pushing me around," Lajoie said.
The debris fell into the river and his legs were pinned, holding him under water. He was able to get his head above water briefly and called to Sebastian for help.
Sebastian handed Lajoie a stick he could use to prop himself above the water, but the stick broke. Sebastian went into the water and propped Lajoie's head and torso above water while the pair worked to free him from the debris.
Sebastian and Lajoie were able to lift the weight off Lajoie's leg just enough for him to get one leg out, and he was able to pull the other leg out and stand up.
"It seemed like an eternity," Lajoie said.
He suffered a chipped ankle bone and a massive bruise on his hip, and was taken to a hospital for treatment. He said he was able to use the stick that broke to fish the chain saw out of the river.
"I think he saved my life. I don't know if I could have held on for whatever time it (would have taken Sebastian) to run back to the business, call 911 and for the Fire Department to drive there," Lajoie said.
Lajoie said Sebastian jumped into the river without hesitation to help save him. He plans to nominate the boy for a lifesaving award.
"It was pretty scary, actually," the soft-spoken Methuen High freshman said. "I just went in with no second thoughts. I didn't have time to think about it."
That's what it means to be prepared.
Once someone asked Baden-Powell, "Be prepared-for what?" "Why, for any old thing!" he replied.