FONDA — Emergency medical technicians strapped Tryne Van Avery to a board Friday before placing a neck brace on her and loading her onto a stretcher. They rolled her into an ambulance and took her blood pressure and pulse before letting her go.

Van Avery, 8, said it was her first time in an ambulance, but it was one of numerous activities she participated in within a few hours during Montgomery County Youth Day, a celebration put on for children in honor of the county Youth Bureau’s 30th anniversary.

“I learned that ambulances are pretty important,” Van Avery said.

Van Avery came to the event with her mother, Lisa, and younger sister. Within two hours she had her face painted, tried to scale a 26-foot-tall rock-climbing wall, joined in a bean bag toss, got into a firefighter’s turnout gear and rolled up a hose.

The Montgomery County Youth Bureau celebrated its 30th anniversary by hosting Youth Day 2008 at the County Annex in Fonda on Friday.
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“There were a lot of interesting, free things for the kids to do,” said Lisa Van Avery.

Emergency Medical Technicians Thomas Shepard and Julia Carpenter from the Greater Amsterdam Volunteer Ambulance Corps were showing kids how first responders prepare victims for a trip to the hospital in a way that makes sure they don’t suffer additional injury during transport.

The process is called “spinal immobilization,” Shepard said, and it ensures any unknown injuries aren’t made worse by a dazed victim trying to move around.

Several activities during Friday’s celebration at the Fonda Village Recreation Park provided lessons as well as fun, Lisa Van Avery said.

“They’re trying to make children aware. I think it was great,” Lisa Van Avery said.

Children were lining up by the dozens to try their skill at climbing the rock wall provided by The Rock mobile rock climbing walls service of Scotia.

“They get to brag if they make it up there,” said Keisha South, who was monitoring the activity at the wall.

Dante Wiltey made it up most of the wall, but the 10-year-old got stuck at a tough part just a few feet from the top.

“It was hard,” Wiltey said.

Other youth donning helmets and brandishing puffy jousting sticks took turns pummeling each other, hoping to knock each other off a cushioned pedestal.

All the while, children could be heard in the background trying their skill at karaoke.

Teens from the Ames Fire Department’s new Explorer Post 206 were showing their peers some of what they’ve been learning with a relay competition set up in the park.

The task involved running about 30 yards to a set of turnout gear the kids had to put on in a hurry before running back, taking off the gear and relaying to the next team member.

The end of the course required participants to roll up a fire hose tight enough to fit into a measuring board.

The exercise, similar to the Explorer Post activities, gives kids a chance to “see what firemen do,” said Explorer Post member Paul Baxter, 17.

Members of the Air National Guard set up a skateboard park and provided literature on helping kids avoid drugs and their consequences, while state police provided a program on the importance of wearing a seat belt.

The event, sponsored by the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors and Assemblyman George Amedore Jr., R-Rotterdam, was held in honor of youth and to commemorate three decades since the formation of the all-volunteer youth board, which reviews requests for funding to help youth groups pay for healthy activities.