Smith: Santa Rosa scouts were prepared when motorcycle crashed

A motorcycle rider had to be relieved to look up and see nearly a dozen Sonoma County Boy Scouts as he lay in pain alongside a remote road near Bakersfield.

The injured man surely felt even better to learn what the scouts' leaders do for a living.

Shawn Hanna, scoutmaster of Troop 125 of Santa Rosa, is an emergency medical technician. Assistant Scoutmaster Miguel Uribarri is a Coast Guardsman from the Two Rock training station who was an EMT and still is a first responder.

'We saw the whole thing happen,' Hanna said.

Driving their own cars and transporting 11 scouts, Hanna and Uribarri had just left Camp Whitsett in the southern Sierra Nevada. They were navigating a curvy, two-lane road when one of two motorcycles just ahead failed to make a left-hand bend.

The bike dropped and flipped as the rider rolled. Hanna and Uribarri rushed to examine him and assess his injuries.

The scouts, ages 10 to 17, pitched in, applying bandages, speaking to the man to keep him from going into shock, helping to place a neck brace, tying on an arm sling and directing traffic.

An ambulance delivered the motorcyclist to a hospital for treatment of a fractured hip and clavicle, a dislocated shoulder and nine broken ribs.

The scouts in Troop 125 study first-aid, but, said Scoutmaster Hanna, 'This was the real deal ... The whole troop went into action and helped.'

Uribarri said the scouts 'were able to put everything they knew into practice, and they executed it perfectly.'

___

JUST SUCH PRAISE comes to Cardinal Newman High School for the way its football players, coaches and parents responded Friday to a stricken player from Fortuna High School.

In a note of gratitude, Fortuna Principal Clint Duey wrote that he was most impressed by how the Cardinal Newman players 'went out of their way to try to console (Fortuna) kids and coaches after the game.'

Duey was moved also by the CN parents with medical backgrounds who ran to 17-year-old Bailey Foley. And instantly, the principal added, 'we had offers of places to stay and offers of whatever we needed.'

____

YOU PLAY GOLF? Some people who do say that what Tyler Tiedeman did Sunday at the Windsor Golf Club is jaw-dropping.

Tyler normally finishes 18 holes with a score in the 90s, which apparently is pretty good. His best score, prior to the first day of a weekend pro-am tournament at Windsor and at Santa Rosa Golf & Country Club, was 84.

The first day of the tourney, he shot a 72. That, I hear tell, is phenomenal.

Tyler, who's 32, hasn't played a lot of serious golf. But you may know that the alum of Montgomery High and Boise State is nearly 6-foot-7 and he seemed destined to become a Major League baseball player when an injury caused him to switch to basketball, which he played professionally for several years in Europe.

Tyler, who now sells medical devices, says he'd found his groove in basketball and baseball games. But 'nothing like what happened on Saturday.'

It helped, he says, that his friend Jess Stimack, the Montgomery golf coach and pro at the Bennett Valley Golf Course, played alongside and advised.

What did Tyler shoot the second day of the tournament at Santa Rosa? 94.

I hear that's how the game goes sometimes.

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.