Here are three items that were in the news last week that provide good lessons for anyone–but especially families–as they examine their home for fire hazards, and also to make sure their fire-escape plans are known by everyone in the family. First, New York city fire officials say a lumbering…
Researchers at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia conducted a study among school-age children to see how effective a smoke detector was in waking them up in the event of fire. Unfortunately, the results were frightening, and a serious wake-up call for parents, firefighters, and to fire-safety educators alike. The study,…
I was watching TV the other day when, believe it or not, a commercial caught my attention. (It seems that everyone else has a digital recording device, so they can skip the commercials. But I was glad that day that I don’t have DVR, or I would not have seen…
On March 20, the Chicago Sun Times reported that two people were injured when a fire started in an apartment at a Chicago Housing Authority senior citizens building. One person suffered minor smoke inhalation, but an elderly man suffered second- and third-degree burns, all because of a cigarette that touched…
The Associated Press reported today that a Texas construction worker, whose face was completely disfigured by third-degree burns suffered when he fell into an electrical power line, successfully underwent the nation’s first full face transplant in a Boston hospital last week. Dallas Wiens, 25, received a new nose, lips, skin,…
Damage to nuclear power plants in Japan caused by the earthquake and tsunami caused concerns and panic not only among the general public in Japan but also around the world including the people in the U.S. United States measures radiation dose by the REM unit (Roentgen Equivalent Man), the doses…
With Japan suffering through a national health scare over the leaking of radiation from its tsunami-damaged nuclear power plants, the topic of radiation sickness and radiation burns has made it front and center in the newspapers and TV news programs. But the most common sources of radiation burns are the…
From a story that makes most good people wonder why there is such evil in the world comes a lesson that anyone who is burned, injured, or otherwise ill can look to as hope for themselves. In South Florida back in February, a 10-year-old boy named Victor was deliberately doused…
While we writers on this blog always try to give useful lessons on everything from preventing second- and third-degree burns, smoke inhalation, and other injuries that come from fires, hot liquids, hot surfaces, and even the sun, we sometimes come across other really good sources of information that we want…
Two deadly fires in the past week are perfect examples of why working smoke detectors are literally life-saving items that every home or apartment should have. First, a fire in a high-rise apartment building in Philadelphia left two firefighters hospitalized, one in serious condition. The fire department responded to the…