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Boy Scouts Celebrated as Heroes

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Denise James
More: Bio, 6abc.com News Team

October 21, 2007 (WPVI) -- Some hero Boy Scouts received a big welcome home today.

A band, including bagpipes, greeted Troop 226 as they arrived back in Rockledge, Montgomery County, one day after coming to the rescue of a hiker who had fallen and hit her head along the Appalachian Trail in Berks County.

Several scouts spotted 41-year-old Jane Scholl just after she had tumbled five feet from a cliff.

"I landed face first in the rock and got a gash from there to there," she said.

She was bleeding and disoriented.

Two troop leaders, a Cheltenham police officer and paramedic, determined she was in no shape to hike six miles back to her fiance's car. So the scouts sprung into action, fashioning a makeshift stretcher using tree branches and their clothes.

"We took sticks, shoved them into each sleeve and made it long enough for her body to fit on. We carried her three miles," said Eagle Scout Andrew Swartz Jr.

They carried her to medics who began treatment, and then to a chopper waiting to fly her to a trauma center.

"I feel really good. It's nice to know I helped someone out in their time of need," said Boy Scout Bill Bowman.

14-year-old Megan Gallagher is a member of the co-ed Venturer Scouts.

"It actually makes me feel really good. Like I have been training for the past seven years, if I came across this kind of situation, how to handle it," said Gallagher.

"We knew how to make a stretcher. We knew what to do. We knew where to go on the trail to get her to safety. It was really cool watching her get medivaced too," Bowman said.

An entire community that thought what the scouts did was cool showered them with praise today.

"They spent a lot of time working on merit badges and learning all these skills. For them to be out having fun on a trip and to be able to put them to use and implement them is fabulous. I am very proud of all of them," said Kay Gallagher.

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