safety tips » Stop, Drop and Blog

Trick-or-Treating Safety

Oct 262010

If you live in a weird, weird city like ours, you might be trick-or-treating sometime this week. Most likely, however, you’ll be taking your ghosts and goblins out on Sunday afternoon or evening. Whenever you go — and hopefully it’s on Halloween, for pity’s sake — you should be taking safety into account.

Here are some ideas to keep in mind.

Trick-or-treat in a group that contains a few adults. Even if your children are older, explain that their safety is more important than their social status. Offer to follow behind a little ways with a few adult friends. For younger children, the more parents the better. Keep an eye on each others’ children and offer to chase down the rambuncious three year old for a very pregnant friend. Safety in numbers!

Masks are funny, but not good for walking. Avoid masks that cover the whole face. Even if they have proper eye holes and nose/mouth ventilation, it can still make it difficult for your child to see where he’s walking (think of all the downed leaves and sticks right now) and possibly impede his peipheral vision. If you already purchased your child’s mask, as him to carry it in his hand until he gets up to the door, putting it on to say, “Trick-or-treat!” Emergency room visits on Halloween are no fun.

Tie up loose ends. Yes, your little princess is adorable in her long dress. And, yes, your little mummy looks frightfully adorable wrapped in ripped up sheets. But if the dress is too long, she can trip. And if someone steps on a loose piece of sheet, your mummy could go flying. Ditto all of this for shoe laces.

Only trick-or-treat in well-lit areas. Kudos to the areas which have switched to day-time trick-or-treating. For those that push the sunset hour or fall after dark, make sure you are only gallavanting in areas that are well-lit. If you are going after dark, make sure to use reflective tape on the back of your child’s costume. No, I don’t care that it doesn’t match her princess dress color palette. You can also get a blinking light. Carry flashlights. See also the safety in numbers point if you’re traipsing around after dark.

Check your child’s candy and make a no-eating-while-trick-or-treating rule. I know that everyone in your neighborhood is on the up and up and would never poison your child. However, it’s still better to check your child’s candy. More over, the no-eating-while-trick-or-treating rule comes in handy as it prevents choking on a piece of said candy and needing to find someone who knows the Heimlich maneuver. Also, checking your kids’ candy lets you spot the good stuff first. What?

Put down the cell phone. No, really. Sure, you’re not driving. But there are bound to be 39859 kids walking around in costume. And lots of adults. And chances are you don’t know all of them. Keep an eye and a mind on your child while you’re out and about this Halloween. More over, staying off the cell phone will let you create memories that you actually remember.

Have a meeting point if you get separated. Families can get separated even when parents are paying close attention. It happens. Create a meeting point like “the old lady’s house on the corner” if should happen. Make sure your kids know their address AND YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME. No, really. Mommy and Daddy don’t quite cut in when locating parents.

There are other things to remember as well. You know, things like don’t play with matches and what not. But those should go without saying.

One last tip that is less about safety and more about fun: Try to find your local firefighters. Our firefighters go out on the truck and hand out candy in different neighborhoods. Another local department parks on Main Street, handing out candy to those who pass by. Truth? They love your kids’ costumes. They do. Make their evening. Make your kids’ evening with some fire truck love, too. It’s a win for all!

And, by the way, if anyone has any advice as to how to convince our city that trick-or-treating should happen on Halloween, I’d be grateful. That said, Western PA is also known for its weird trick-or-treating nights, so I should be used to it. But dang it! Halloween is for trick-or-treating. Not a random late-October Thursday night! Humph.

Fire Prevention Week 2010: Smoke Alarms, A Sound You Can Live With

fire life, Safety 2 Responses »

Oct 042010

How many smoke detectors do you have in your house? Do you have one on every floor? Do you have one in every bedroom? Do you know how many you should have? And, hey, while we’re at this inquisition, when was the last time you checked your smoke detector batteries?

This year the theme of Fire Prevention Week is: Smoke Alarms, A Sound You Can Live With. And it’s true. Each year in the US, nearly 3,000 people die in house fires.

In 2003-2006, roughly two-thirds of home fire deaths resulted from home fires in homes with no smoke alarms or no working smoke alarms.
- No smoke alarms were present in 40% of the home fire deaths.
- In 23% of the home fire deaths, smoke alarms were present but did not sound.
In more than half of the reported home fires in which the smoke alarms were present but did not operate even though the fire was large enough, batteries were missing or disconnected. Nuisance alarms were the leading reason for disconnected alarms.

The point? Having working smoke detectors cuts the risk of dying in a fire in half. The facts above are somewhat alarming, however. You should never remove a battery just because the smoke alarm is annoying you. Maybe it’s time for a new smoke alarm. According to the NFPA site & their quick stats, in a 2008 telephone survey, only 12% knew that smoke alarms should be replaced every 10 years. How old are your smoke detectors in your house? If you don’t know the answer at all, you need to replace them. Yesterday.

For those that don’t test their smoke alarm batteries every month, I want to ask you: have you been out of the house for longer than 12 hours recently? Even if you’re using a good quality brand battery, it can die quickly. If you’ve been out of the house for an extended period of time, you may never have heard your warning beeps. Perhaps your smoke detector malfunctioned and it’s simply not working up there on the wall. How will you know unless you test it. Do it now. I’ll wait. (Just ask FourAgainstTwo about this very topic.)

Get your kids involved in the fire safety this week. Either have them watch you test the smoke detector batteries or have them help you. Explain why it’s important. Then download Sparky’s smoke alarm safety sheet and hang it on your fridge to serve as a visual reminder to check your batteries each month. Then download the escape grid and make an escape route for your house in the event of a fire. Sparky also has a great website where you can help your kids learn more about fire safety.

I share this information with you because it is important. Our department responded to a fire last week that turned out to be fatal. The cause was an electrical malfunction in the wall. You can do all of the right things — never leave candles burning, have a fire extinguisher in your kitchen, get your furnace checked out before turning it on — but you’re simply never exempt from a house fire. There are things you simply cannot control. As such, you need to be prepared to keep your family — your most treasured possession — as safe as possible. Smoke detectors are they key to doing so.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday of this week, I’ll be sharing some new kids’ firefighter themed book reviews. On Friday, I will be hosting a giveaway of those three books that will last through the month of October. I decided to extend the giveaway all month in hopes that people would really get the message that smoke detectors are important. So, tune in all week for some great fire books and general reminders to be fire safe.

If you want to watch videos, share them with your school (or blog readers) or just gain more information, visit the National Fire Protection Association website. Don’t forget to check out the Fire Prevention Week blog for pictures from fire departments around the country as well as Sparky sightings (which could be a fun fire-slash-geography lesson for the kids).