Award for teen who gave aid in bear attack

The Huntington student who helped save his friends' lives after a bear attack in Alaska last weekend might delay his career for a year so he can pursue a job rescuing people.

Simeon Melman's revelation came Thursday as he accepted an award from Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center for his role in the rescue. The teen is a hospital volunteer and was trained in first aid there.

Melman, 17, said he was inspired by the troopers who rescued his group of outdoor-survival-skills students by helicopter early Sunday. "I'm thinking about taking a year off between college and work to be a rescuer in a helicopter," he said after he received the hospital's Community Service Award. "I want to do what those guys did for us."

Melman said he called on training he learned as a junior volunteer at the West Islip hospital to treat wounds and provide care to four fellow students who suffered injuries, two of them serious, when they were attacked by a grizzly. "Without my training, I would have been freaking out," Melman said.

The boys were on the last leg of a survival skills course with the Wyoming-based National Outdoor Leadership School. They were hiking without an instructor.

Dr. Jerome Weiner, the hospital's chief medical officer, said Melman "provided very supportive and intelligent care."

Melman credited the friends who helped care for the injured. "Without their strength and teamwork, this definitely would not have been a happy ending," he said.

The other members of the group included Joshua Berg, 17, of New City in Rockland County; Sam Gottsegen, 17, of Denver; Sam Boas, 16, of Westport, Conn.; Shane Garlock, 16, of upstate Pittsford; Victor Martin, 18, of Richmond, Calif.; and Noah Allaire, 16, of Albuquerque, N.M.

Gottsegen, the most severely mauled, was in good condition at an Anchorage hospital. Berg was in fair condition. Allaire and Martin were discharged.