Idiot Scoutmasters: Once Bitten, Forever Stupid

Last year I decided I would write blog posts about stupid things my Scoutmasters had done while I was in the Boy Scouts of America.  This is my second article.

Here is the first:

Idiot Scoutmasters: A True Story of a Scout's Canteen


My story again revolves around my Scoutmaster, Mr. Brasher.  Needless to say, he had a alternative way of teaching us boys.  When it came to First Aid, he had a belief that immersion was a better teacher than learning by the book or from a teacher.

We were at some sort of camping event with other troops.  We would go to one station, and learn First Aid.  We would then go to another station, and study something else.  Well, it was a few hours after we had learned First Aid, and we were being instructed about another subject.

Out of nowhere I saw Mr. Brasher screaming like he was in pain, as he started running around like a chicken with its head cut off.  It was then I heard him scream, "It bit me!  It bit me!"

I thought, "He's just been bit by a snake!!!"  It only took 0.02 seconds later for me to realize that he was acting like he had just been bitten by a snake to see what we would do.  Still, this kind of behavior had become normalized to me.  I was the first one to run up, and yell at him to, "stay calm!"
A few hours earlier at our First Aid class we had learned the importance of keeping a snake bit victim calm.  We were told to tackle the person if needed.  Anything to keep them from running around, and increasing their heartrate.

As a twelve year old I was proud that I was the first one to grab him, and yell at him to keep calm.  You know, he actually kept up the act yelling back at me that, "He was bit by a snake!  It bit me!  It bit me here!"  But now that I think back on the incident, it's weird how normalized that sort of behavior became to me.  But then again, I was only twelve.

The real kicker was that Mr. Brasher actually had a snake.  A rubber snake.  He had brought a rubber snake along on the camping trip just to pull off that stunt.  That's the kind of mindset I had to deal with.