“My first Boy Scout hike was on Dec. 7, 1941,” Paul R. Christen recalls. He has been an avid supporter of Scouting ever since, and earned the Eagle Scout rank as a youth.

In 1968, Christen was a passen­ger in a small plane that crashed on takeoff. He and the pilot survived, but were badly injured. Laying in the wreckage, he realized his foot had been severed and hand severely cut.

In a dazed vision, “I saw the old Boy Scout blue handbook from a long time ago,” he recalls “…the page where it talked about tourniquets. I took my tie off and made a tourniquet around my arm (and one) with my belt around my thigh.” Doctors believe his improvised first aid saved his life.

Christen’s pledge of $25 million to Scouting supports the Christen High Adventure Base at “The Summit.”