Life Lessons from Children and Youth

“We saw him put his hand up and saying, ‘help, help,’ so we went over to him and pulled him on our board,” Satherley said on Monday.

Jake Satherley and his partner in this extraordinary exploit, Spencer Jeams, rescued a middle aged man who was drowning in the ocean off the east coast of Australia. They are members of a lifeguard training program for under 14 year olds.

This brief story was cited over 5,000,000 times in Yahoo and Google between 1/11/10 and 1/12/10 with almost the exact wording except for one report on abc.net that was different. There Mrs. Satherley reveals that the children had not been taught how to save people; that training would come in a couple of years. Jake’s mother added that her son has always been the type of child to save sick animals, birds, or lizards.

This story is an inspiration about the innocence of children who, under the belief that they can, actually did – and jumped into a situation to save a life. Jake and Spencer used the training they received and took it to the next level instinctively. They responded without hesitation to their innate gift to be aware of a need and to act.

Who would have thought that saving a lizard could translate into rescuing a person?

May we as adults take the opportunity nurture that spark in every child that coul someday blossom into the fulfillment of a dream for them, for others and for ourselves.

Patreece Thompson

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