Every weekday morning the phone screams at me... GET UP!!! Snooze for just a… GET UP!!! Over and over, until I finally commit to peeling myself from the sheets.
Every weekday morning I’m amazed that my four-year-old, who sleeps right beside me, never flinches at the sound.
Got me thinking… if the alarm went off would it wake her? Of course, the sound will wake me and I would move her to safety if needed, but if she isn’t affected by the unsettling screech of my morning ritual, how is she going to hear an alarm? After some online investigation, I learned that children spend twice as much time in deep sleep as adults do every night.
Many times when people contact us to protect their home, the thought of a fire system hasn't entered their mind, because smoke detectors were already installed to satisfy code "requirements." Those smoke detectors are not monitored, meaning they could sound for ages with no response from the fire department..., and if they are not heard the result would be devastating. The importance of a monitored fire system cannot be overstated. A monitored fire alarm means that as soon as your smoke or carbon monoxide detector senses trouble, our monitoring station is notified and is alerting the fire department immediately. Simply put, help is on the way.
The following video is a Today Show report from 2008 called “Cause For Alarm- Children & Smoke Alarms,” and is an eye opening demonstration of how children may react differently to an alarm in the middle of the night than we would expect. Ultimately what this report drilled into me, is that we all need to have a plan, and we need to practice it.
