Smoke Inhalation Injury

Published on: April 5, 2011

Real-World Lessons for Preventing Home Fires, Severe Burns, and Smoke Inhalation

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 pet turtle sparked a fast-moving fire in a a Brooklyn apartment after crawling out of its tank and knocking over the terrarium’s heat lamp.

The six-year-old African tortoise, about the size of a basketball, survived. But officials say one firefighter and three police officers suffered smoke inhalation. The reptile was housed in their owner’s bedroom, an eighteen-year-old who was not home at the time, nor was his family.

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Published on: March 31, 2011

Alarming News About the Effectiveness of Smoke Detectors

By Larry Kramer

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, whose results were publicized recently in the industry journal Fire and Materials, asked the parents in 80 families to activate the smoke detector in their home after their children had been asleep between one and three hours. The 123 children who were in the study were divided into two groups, based on which children had reached puberty and which did not. The reason for this: Levels of the hormone melatonin, which helps induce sleep, go down once children reach puberty. So it would seem that younger children would be deeper into sleep, and perhaps less likely to be awakened by an alarm.

That proved to be true–but it did not mean that most of the older children heard the alarm, either. In fact,, 78 percent of all the kids that were studied slept through a smoke detector’s alarm that was blaring for at least 30 seconds. What’s more, parents reported that of the 22 percent of children who did wake up, only half of them identified the noise as a smoke detector, and just one-fourth of them even knew that a smoke detector’s noise means to get out of the house immediately. And while the younger kids were likeliest to sleep through the alarm (87 percent of them!), 56 percent of the 11- to 15-year-olds also slept through the piercing noise.

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Published on: March 29, 2011

The Clothes Dryer: A Frequent Source of Fire and Severe Burns

By Larry Kramer

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 this informative commercial.)

Anyway, the commercial was for an insurance company that offers coverage for the home. In it, the actors stand in front of a giant ball of lint–the type of lint that comes from washing and drying your clothes–and then one of the actors lights the ball on fire. The ball, which was larger than the actors, becomes engulfed in flames almost instantly. Then one of the actors says, “Did you know that 15,000 fires start in clothes dryers each year?” That’s a pretty big number.

But as I thought about that a bit more, that number became even more terrifying. Why? Because most of the time, a clothes dryer is turned on and left alone for 45 minutes or more, until its timer runs out on its own. So that means that there are thousands of times each year where people go to sleep, or are doing things on the other side of their home, when the dryer is running. And if people are not diligent about cleaning out the lint trap frequently, it is very easy for the dryer to catch fire. What’s more, the lint and the clothes inside the machine will go up in flames in an instant, and possibly engulf the room and the rest of the house before the occupants know what is happening.

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Published on: March 10, 2011

Here’s Another Good Source for Preventing Fires and Third-Degree Burns at Home

By Larry Kramer

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 to pass along to you.

For instance, I saw an article this week on www.SafetyAtHome.com about making your home safer not only by being more aware of fire hazards and possible obstacles to escape, but also by teaching your children about fire prevention and what they should do if a fire starts in the home without their parents’ knowledge.

This topic is especially relevant as the entire nation mourns the loss of 7 small children in a house fire in rural Pennsylvania this week. The children were in the house while the mother was in a nearby barn, milking cows. By the time one of the kids ran to get mom to tell her about the smell of smoke in the house, the mother was unable to get the other children out of the house because of the speed of the fire. It’s a truly terrible story.

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Published on: March 8, 2011

Smoke Alarms Can Prevent Death from Third-Degree Burns or Smoke Inhalation

By Larry Kramer

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 early-morning blaze at an 18-story Philadelphia Housing Authority building and cleared scores of residents out. Smoke and flames poured from windows on the building’s eighth floor before the fire was doused.

The American Red Cross of Southeastern Pennsylvania helped about 150 residents with shelter, clothing, and food. The good news is that the worst outcome for any of the tenants was damage to their apartments and property–but nobody suffered bad smoke inhalation or third-degree burns.

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Published on: March 1, 2011

A Terrible Month for Fires and Third-Degree Burns due to Carelessness

By Larry Kramer

Unfortunately, it seems that the month of February 2011 can be used by fire-prevention experts as a useful lesson in how human error and carelessness can bring devastating consequences, in the form of third-degree burns and smoke inhalation, from fires.

First, in New York City on February 24, candles used in a bedroom caused a fatal five-alarm fire after they tipped over and ignited bed sheets. The fire left an elderly woman dead and also injured 20 firefighters and three residents. The occupant of the apartment where the fire began had placed the candles on the floor around her bed. At some point, they tipped over, and a guest doused the flames with water.

But then the guest made a terrible mistake–he opened a window to clear the smoke from the room, which allowed fresh air to feed the fire again. The fire department said this actually created a “blowtorch effect” that whipped through the open window and pushed the fire all the way through the apartment. Then, as the occupants were fleeing through the apartment, they left the bedroom door and the front door open, which allowed the fire to spread all the way into the building’s hallway and quickly engulf the rest of the building.

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Published on: February 3, 2011

Smoke Inhalation from Unusual Fire Sources

By Larry Kramer

In a blog post about ten days back, I talked about the need to check your home for potential fire hazards on a regular basis. Red flags that come to mind right away are extension cords on carpets, space heaters too close to furniture or clothing, and candles left to burn for too long at a time.

Of course, almost immediately after posting that blog, I see an example of a fire hazard that most of us would never have thought of: lint in the clothes dryer. On January 26, two residents of Rochester, NY had to go to the hospital and receive oxygen therapy quickly to stave off potentially fatal effects of smoke inhalation–even though they were involved in what the local fire department considered a minor house fire, and had suffered no second- or third-degree burns.

Just after 7 a.m. that day, the clothes dryer caught fire in the basement of the house, probably because its lint trap was overly full. Although the residents noticed the smoke and left the house to call for help, and it took firefighters just 15 minutes to control the fire (which was contained to the basement) the two people told emergency responders that they did not feel well and were taken to the hospital as a precaution. Because smoke rises, the entire house sustained damage from the smoke. What’s more, there were no working smoke detectors inside the house, though local firefighters installed detectors in the house right after the fire, as a courtesy. But if the fire started while the residents were asleep, the lack of smoke detectors could have produced a tragic outcome.

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Published on: January 27, 2011

Fast Treatment of Smoke Inhalation Critical to Recovery

By Larry Kramer

In a small town in England last week, a man was saved from his burning car by firefighters. But it was the fimmediate action of paramedics in getting the man fitted with an oxygen mask and breathing pure oxygen that just as likely saved his life too.

The man, who was suffering from shock as a result of the fire, was not able to tell paramedics if he had breathed in smoke, so the paramedics gave him pure oxygen as a precaution. This was wise, as it turned out that a later examination revealed that he did in fact breathe in the poisonous fumes contained in smoke.

Anyone who gets within close proximity of a fire should take oxygen therapy afterwards, because the damaging effects of smoke inhalation can present themselves over days, weeks, and months–even if a person feels okay right after a fire. And with children, who have smaller lungs than adults which will fill completely with smoke and become damaged more quickly, it is imperative they take oxygen even if there’s no evidence of first-, second-, or third-degree burns or other obvious physical ailments.

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Published on: January 25, 2011

Smoke Detectors / Smoke Alarms Prevent Deadly Smoke Inhalation–if They’re Working

By Larry Kramer

In one of my posts last week, I mentioned a fatal fire that started because an extension cord had shorted out and set fire to clothes that were laying on top of it. This is a very preventable type of fire–but it can be prevented only when people living in a house or apartment practice good fire safety. The best way to do this: Take two minutes every day to check around your house or apartment for situations that could start a fire, or cause a fire to spread, or block the escape path to a door or window.

Besides this, there is another very simple precaution that people can take. And even though this precaution cannot prevent a fire, it can do something even more important: it can prevent a fire from trapping victims and inflicting terrible third-degree burns and poisonous smoke inhalation. What is that precaution? Installing a minimum of one smoke detector on the ceiling of each level of the house, preferably in the hallway near the bedrooms. It is advisable to put a smoke detector in each bedroom as well.

Sure enough, the blaze that was started by the shorted-out extension cord, which killed a mother and her three children who were asleep at the time, took place in a home that did not have a smoke alarm. So even though the fire began in the living room, in an electrical outlet that was also being used to power a stereo system, a computer, and other appliances, the lack of a smoke detector meant there was too little time to escape once family members woke up and realized there was a fire. The fire had engulfed much of the first floor and created dark, choking smoke that rose up and filled the rooms of the second floor before any of the sleeping victims had a chance to escape. And believe it or not, many victims who die of smoke inhalation are not even awakened by the smell of smoke. Smoke can poison your lungs and cause unconsciousness so quickly that there is no time to wake up!

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Published on: January 20, 2011

Putting Out Fires Yourself: A Recipe for Third-Degree Burns

By Larry Kramer

In my previous post two days ago, I wrote about the need to be aware of fire hazards not just inside your home, but surrounding your home as well. The reason: Careless neighbors can cause a fire that spreads to where you live too. Such a situation nearly happened to me not long ago, and my neighbor almost got burned badly because she tried to put the fire she started rather than calling firefighters to let them do it.

Sure enough, a story appeared in a London newspaper the next day, January 17, about a British man there who did the same thing as my neighbor. Unfortunately, that man now has third-degree burns and smoke-inhalation injuries to his lungs that threaten his life. Here is part of that article:

“A man barely escaped with his life after an early-morning fire Monday in an apartment in London’s east end. The man was cooking and likely fell asleep, only to be woken up by his smoke detector. ‘He tried to put the fire out himself but sustained burns to his face, his forearms, and hands, plus he suffered some smoke inhalation,’ district chief Jeff Adams reported.”

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