Scout wins national award for helping neighbor during fire

Boy Scout Samuel Dummer was prepared that day in March when he noticed smoke billowing across his Round Lake neighborhood.

“The smoke got thicker, and it drifted to the cul-de-sac,” said the 15-year-old Grayslake North High School sophomore.

He dashed to the home of neighbor Douglas Clark, where the smoke seemed to be coming from. Dummer called the fire department and used a fire extinguisher to fend off flames that had already melted a plastic chair outside, and were rising to the third story of the home.

Credited with saving Clark’s home, Dummer this week was awarded a National Certificate of Merit by the Boy Scouts of America during a ceremony at the Millburn Congregational United Church of Christ in Lake Villa. Dummer belongs to Troop 87, chartered by the church.

“Samuel came to my rescue,” said Clark, who coaches soccer at Warren Township High School in Gurnee. “The fire could have been so much worse.”

The fire contained, Clark’s family was only displaced for three months while repairs were made. Clark escaped with minor burns.

“If it hadn’t been for Samuel, we would have been out of our house for at least a year,” Clark said.

Dummer called the award “humbling.”

“I was just doing what anyone would do to help your neighbor,” he said. “It’s really not something to brag about.”

Dummer, however, will readily brag about what he’s learned after being in the Boy Scouts for nearly 10 years. He credits his ability to properly use a fire extinguisher to training he received last year.

“Boy Scouts helped me a lot,” he said. “Learning about fire is a basic skill. You learn how to hold matches, start fires, be safe around fires. I learned that while camping.”

He attended a National Boy Scout Centennial Jamboree in Virginia last year, where he had hands-on training on using a fire extinguisher. He learned how to pull the pin and start the extinguisher and where to aim it.

“You have to direct the extinguisher at the base of the flames, you have to disperse it correctly otherwise the fire will start up again,” he said.

“It took me a couple of times but I passed. I went on my merry way never thinking I’d be using those skills.”

But in March, Clark was putting what he thought were cold ashes from a fire pit into bags when the phone rang inside his house.

“The flames were already up the side of my house,” he recalled of seeing the fire. “I was in a panic mode. I saw Samuel, and he had already called the fire department.”

Dummer’s parents had made sure he knew where the fire extinguishers are stored his home. He grabbed one and hopped over the backyard fence.

“I knew right where to aim to get the fire out,” he said. The first extinguisher didn’t get the fire out, so Dummer ran to get a bigger one from his home.

“He pushed me out of the way, stepped into the fire and extinguished it,” Clark said.

By the time the fire trucks arrived, the fire was nearly out. The fire department had to knock down part of the wall to make sure the fire was contained, but it could have been so much worse, Clark said.

Clark was taken to the hospital and treated for second-degree burns.

“Samuel took care of my dogs while I was in the hospital,” he said.

Dummer chalks it up to the central tenet of scouting: Be Prepared.

“In an emergency situation, don’t panic,” he said. “Keep calm. Think it through, but act quickly.”

Dummer was supposed to be in the house reading the day of the fire, but he was in the garage, said his mom, Kay Dummer.

“Honestly, it’s true, he was near where he needed to be,” she said. “He saw the smoke. He was home. Normally he would have been in school, except it was spring break. To us, God had him in the right place at the right time.

“We have fire extinguishers in the house and kitchen and we’ve shown the kids where they are. For him to be calm enough and smart enough and figure out what to do, we’re thankful.”

His father, David Dummer, is an assistant scoutmaster for Troop 87. He said his son has proved that ‘Be Prepared” is more than a motto.

The National Certificate of Merit is awarded to a youth member or adult leader who has performed a significant act of service that deserves national recognition. The Boy Scouts of America gave out 87 of the certificates in 2010 and a total of 1,588 since the award’s inception in 1989.

“This is a very rare award,” said Scoutmaster Romney Dodd. “I’m pleased and impressed with what Samuel has done.”

shdevore@tribune.com