Saturday Night in Indiana
with Brandi Seei

Well, another year has passed and as many of you experienced, another ZookiMelt has come and gone as well. I think I can speak for the entire iZook staff when I say that based on participant feedback, it was quite possibly the best 'Melt ever.

Although ZookiMelt was indeed a success, there were two incidents which I feel we need to address. Both occurred late Saturday evening after the majority of the ‘melters had broken camp and headed home.

The first was a “could-be” emergency that turned out to be a case of “I ran in to some people I met earlier today.” A nineteen year old girl was sitting around her group’s campfire, then left to use the restroom. Twenty minutes passed and she had not returned. A member of her group came to the iZook staff campfire to let us know that a member of her group was missing. The iZook staff immediately grabbed flashlights and lanterns, and starting at one edge of the campground, spaced out evenly and began “minesweeping” across the field in search of the missing girl. Within less than 5 minutes she was found, safe and sound, visiting with some friends in another area of the campground. Those who were still in attendance (or those who have heard the story through the grapevine) know that a young man was taken to the hospital in an ambulance around midnight Saturday evening to be treated for alcohol poisoning. The iZook staff was once again relaxing around our campfire, when we were alerted that a non-ZookiMelt camper had passed out near the port-a-potties at the back of the campground. A long-time ZookiMelter, Geoff Carlson, was already on the scene but felt that this young man needed more help than Geoff was capable of providing. At this, his wife Julie rushed to the staff area to get help. Fortunately one of our staff members, Kim Mazzola, is a nurse. Kim and Julie wasted no time rushing her medically equipped vehicle to the scene to assess the situation. After assessing his vital signs and not able to awaken the young man she determined that it was necessary to call 911 and have him taken to the hospital.

At this point, he was shaking and began to go into shock. Unfortunately none of his friends or family were present at the time. The iZook staff members who were helping to gather information were able to track down his cousin who was sleeping in his tent when the incident began. We did determine that this 19 year old had apparently consumed an entire bottle of hard liquor. The ambulance and local police arrived and the boy was taken to the hospital with his cousin following behind.

To my knowledge, we never received any follow-up information as to how this young man recovered from the incident.

I tell this story not to point out the dangers of alcohol or any other “after school special” morals. I tell this story because I want to applaud the iZook staff for their quick and organized responses to both a missing camper alert and a potentially life-threatening incident. As was mentioned before, this young man was not associated in any way with ZookiMelt. He was simply a camper who happened to be staying at the campground for the night. However, the iZook Staff handled both situations as though they had been running practice drills for the past year. They functioned as a unit without bickering over who was in charge and giving orders.

In addition to the praise I hand our own staff, I would like to acknowledge ALL of the 2005 ZookiMelters (as well as the Alumni.) Many times throughout the weekend, the iZook staff were approached by members of the family who owns the Attica Family Campground to applaud us for having the most organized large group they had ever served.

We want to thank each and every person who attended ZookiMelt for helping us to maintain this well deserved reputation. It is because of each of you that we are able to (and want to) continue the tradition of holding the biggest Suzuki off-roading event in the country.