CNN:  “A 12-year-old Boy Scout in Hawaii takes the organization’s motto “be prepared” very seriously and used his knowledge to help rescue a couple and their injured dog on a trail. David King was on the way back from a 15-mile hike near his home in Kailua with his mom, Christine, trying to earn his Hiking merit badge when they came across a couple, lost on the trail and trying to aid their dog Smokey, in August.

“‘We encountered them with about two to three miles left in the hike,’ David told CNN. ‘It wasn’t obvious (that something was wrong), but then the dog was on the ground, and we asked if they needed anything and they said yes.’ The couple had run out of water and their phones were dead, plus Smokey’s paws had been cut up from the trail and he couldn’t walk, David said. The couple tried to carry him out but the blue nose pitbull weighed almost 100 pounds.

“Christine said the couple was in danger of being stuck on the trail in the dark, so they shared their water and brainstormed a way to get everyone out. That’s when David tapped into his Boy Scout skills to save the day and created a stretcher to carry the dog, a skill he learned from his brother while getting his First Aid merit badge. ‘So we got a big tree branch that had fallen recently and snapped it in half, then we put on shirts,’ he said. ‘It took us a couple of tries because the dog didn’t really want to go on.'”