Camp Winnebago in the News

http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/1786372.shtml


Thursday, July 14, 2005

Kents Hill counselors help avert drowning


By BETTY JESPERSEN
Staff Writer

Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.


TOWNSHIP E -- A child who nearly drowned after being swept over two waterfalls at Smalls Falls, south of Rangeley, Tuesday has been taken off a ventilator at a Bangor hospital while the camp counselor who resuscitated him is being hailed as a hero by his young charges.

Zachary Larkin, who turns 3 on July 21, was sitting on a rock dangling his feet in a pool of water at the top of the scenic falls when he slipped out of his mother's hand and was carried away by the current, according to Mark Latti, spokesman for the Maine Warden Service.

The boy's father, Tyler Bailey, 30, of New London, Conn., jumped in and followed the child down two waterfalls but was unable to locate him until the unconscious child surfaced in the bottom pool, Latti said. The total drop at the falls is 55 feet.

In one of two life-saving coincidences, two counselors with a group of 10-year-old boys from Camp Winnebago in Kents Hill were at the falls following an overnight trip up Tumbledown Mountain.

"I heard a lady screaming that a baby had fallen in the water," Shavoyae Brown, 19, of Emerson, Ga., the athletic director at Camp Winnebago in Kents Hill, said Wednesday.

He recalled yelling to fellow counselor Tyler Warmack, 22, a wilderness trip leader from Chapel Hill, N.C., to jump in after the child. He hurriedly got the campers situated out of sight of the water then plunged in himself after Warmack. Both counselors are CPR-certified.

Bailey, by this time, had hold of his unconscious son and Warmack told him to bring the child to a rock, where he started CPR. Working as a team, Brown said, he held Zachary's neck rigid in the event he had a spinal injury while the other counselor administered the measured chest pumps. The traumatized boy soon vomited water and started breathing on his own, he said.

In another chance occurrence, a NorthStar EMS Ambulance was passing the entrance on Route 4 at the same time on the way to its station in Rangeley when the crew was flagged down by a witness. There is no cell phone service in the remote area, Latti said.

Medical personnel were at the scene moments after Warmack revived the child, said NorthStar's northern tier supervisor, Michael Senecal, on Wednesday. He said the counselors' quick response saved the boy's life, and he noted the coincidence that an ambulance was so close by.

"Thank God, everything worked out just right and that (Warmack and Brown) reacted as quickly as they did," he said.

Brown, an English major at Emmanuel College in Georgia, reflected on the events of the day before and said it was an experience he will never forget.

"We were there for a reason," he said.

Andy Lilienthal, director of Camp Winnebago, a camp for boys that offers outdoor experiences and wilderness camping, said the rescue has had an impact on the campers and is being used as a life lesson to talk about values and service.

"They were very proud of their counselors and call them heroes," Lilienthal said. "You never know how people will perform at the highest level, especially when under stress. Camp counselors are role models -- they change lives everyday."

There were about 25 people involved in Zachary's rescue, including several wardens, Rangeley Fire Department and Northern Franklin County Search and Rescue, a volunteer technical rescue group that assists the warden service with high-angle and wilderness rescues, Latti said.

Zachary was stabilized by emergency medical personnel at the scene, then strapped in a rescue basket and carried up by ropes to the waiting ambulance. He was airlifted to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, where his condition was listed as stable.

Betty Jespersen -- 778-6991

bjespersen@centralmaine.com