A 12-year-old Rotterdam resident will be honored by the Boy Scouts of America next week for his role in saving his mother’s life last year.
Matthew March will receive a national certificate for meritorious actions and a cord of honor at an award ceremony that will take place Monday, Jan. 7, at a regular meeting of the 105th Boy Scout Troop in Esperance led by Scoutmaster Wayne Fink.
In early December 2006, March, a seventh-grade Schalmont Middle School student at the time, returned home on the bus to find his mother, Melanie March, passed out on the floor.
March’s mother was at home watching television with her 3-year-old son when she had an allergic reaction to a new medication.
I had recently had a stroke, said Melanie March. `The doctors were trying to get me on the right medication to prevent me from having another one. Apparently, the one I was prescribed was rejected by my body.`
As Melanie March attempted to walk to the bathroom, she collapsed on the floor and vomited. While her son was asleep on the couch, she lost consciousness for nearly two hours.
When her son Matthew came home, he started to look for his snowboard, but instead found his mother on the floor in the hallway. The boy took action immediately.
`I called my grandmother first and asked her to call the paramedics for help and then I e-mailed my dad since that’s the best way to get a hold of him,` said March. `Then I pulled together all of my mom’s medications so I could show the EMTs when they got there.`
March also tried successfully to wake his mother, but she did not stay conscious for long. While he waited for emergency assistance, March stayed at his mother’s side, cleaning her face and the floor where she had vomited and dabbing her forehead with a moist towel.
When emergency staff did arrive, March gave them all the information he had, and then stayed at home to watch his younger brother while the ambulance took his mother to the emergency room.
Doctors later told her she was severely dehydrated. After a brief stay in the hospital that lasted only a few hours, Melanie March was released.
`The administration of first aid is a major part of being a Boy Scout,` said Fink. `We practice our skills all the time and have a mandatory first aid merit badge. What Matthew did was implement the basic first aid strategies we teach in the Boy Scouts.`
Last year, March won the Pop Secor award from the 105th troop for the implementation of first aid training, which made him eligible for national recognition. The Otschodela Council of the Boy Scouts of America, a regional association decided the boy’s actions were worthy of national recognition and voted to give March a national cord of honor.
`We deemed his actions more than worthy of some recognition,` said Tom Wright, a member of the Otschodela Council. `In my 17 years on the council, we’ve only given three of these awards.`
These days, Melanie March is in better health and according to her, the events of that December day have brought her closer to her son.
`He does sometimes hold it over me that he saved my life, so I’ve bought him a fair number of brownie sundaes,` said Melanie March. `But I’m very proud and very impressed, and I thank him a lot for what he did.`
Now in the eighth grade, March enjoys sports, playing soccer for Schalmont in the fall, snowboarding at Maple Ski Ridge in the winter and wakeboarding in the summer.
And while most 12-year-olds haven’t saved a life, March doesn’t think of himself as a hero, just a guy who was in the right place at the right time.
`I was going to stay after school that day, but I decided to come home early,` he said. `It’s a good thing I did.`
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