News Photo by Julie Riddle A youngster eyes a giant bear at the Teddy Bear Picnic event for children and families Saturday at Bay View Park in Alpena.

ALPENA–Tiny medics-in-training rendered first aid to their fuzzy friends Saturday at the inaugural Teddy Bear Picnic, sponsored by the Alpena Community College Student Nurses Association.

Under a windblown awning, students in the ACC nursing program led children in applying bandages, treating imaginary burns, and listening to bear bellies with a stethoscope. Sheets of small red stickers allowed children to give their teddies chicken pox, and supplies were at the ready to create tiny splints or bring down a furry fever.

The 36 children who attended this first-time event, held in Alpena’s Bay View Park, were excited to be able to help treat their stuffed friends, LPN student Ashley Young said. Far from being afraid of the medical equipment, they were eager to learn first-aid techniques, even if only on a child-to-bear level.

“It’s really hard to put a blood pressure cuff on a teddy bear,” RN student Leslie Konieczny added.

The event was the brainchild of Kennedy Chmura, president of ACC’s Student Nursing Association. Chmura concocted the idea of the teddy bear picnic from a childhood outing with her great-grandmother, who was in attendance at Saturday’s event, to an event at which children could bring their stuffed toys in need of mending to be repaired while they played.

An even better idea, Chmura thought, was to put first-aid materials into the hands of children, teaching them care basics and making the unfamiliar less frightening through hands-on experience.

Simple first-aid lessons in a child’s language can be a good reminder to parents, too, Chmura said.

In addition to the mini medical training, two veteran Alpena Search and Rescue Team canines were on hand Saturday to meet youngsters: Kaiser, a German shepherd who recently underwent double hip replacement and is now back to work, heading to the Detroit area Sunday to help with a recovery effort; and Finley, who helped search for a missing 4-year-old in Alpena Wednesday.

SAR deputy director Chris Moe-Herlick explained the hug-a-tree technique to youngsters, telling them to wrap their arms around a trunk, if they are ever lost, and to wait for her and her dogs to come find them.

Firefighters, paramedics, and police officers also shook small hands and let children take a peek inside emergency vehicles. Exposure to rescue personnel, organizers hope, will help children be less afraid if ever they are in need of emergency assistance.

Northern Michigan has a lot of wilderness and water, Chmura said, raising the chances that a child will become lost or stuck and need help. When a child in danger hears a bark or a siren coming, “they need to know that that’s help coming, and they’re not going to hurt them,” Chmura said.

The simplified medical training, too, helps ease children’s fear, breaking down a potentially overwhelming doctor or emergency room visit into something to which a child can relate. Performing first aid on something they treasure helps children understand, when they themselves need treatment, that a doctor or nurse is helping them, Chmura said, just like they helped their bear.

“It just helps provide that education on a simple level,” Chmura said. “We’re just helping to take away their fear a little bit.”

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.