Episode Transcript
Interviewer: What should you do if you're trapped in a burning building? We'll examine that next on The Scope.
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Interviewer: So if you remember back when you were a little kid stop, drop and roll. You touch the door to see if it's hot. What should you do if you're trapped in a burning building? Are those still the same steps or is there something else we should know? Annette Matherly is the Outreach and Disaster Coordinator for the Utah Burn Center.
I'm caught in a burning building, whether it's at home or at work. What do I do? Are those basics I learned in school still good or what?
Annette: Absolutely some things never change; you just try and make them right? So let's just say I'm in my bed, I'm snoozing away and the smoke alarm goes off. I wake up but I'm kind of still sleeping. It's dark, right? But is it dark because there's smoke in my room or is it dark because my eyes aren't open yet or is it dark just because it's night?
Well, I don't know the answer to that and so I roll out of bed and I drop to the floor. My door is closed because remember we're supposed to keep our doors closed when we sleep at night and that's because if there's a fire outside our room, if our door is open and we open the windows so we can escape out the window then it will cause this draft which will pull the heat and smoke into our room.
So that's why we leave our door closed. So I'm crawling across the floor, I'm heading to the door. I use the back of my hand to feel the door. Is it hot? No, I can't feel it. I put my hand up and I feel the knob and the knob is hot so that means there's some fire, something hot outside my room. So now, man, I can't get out of my door. I know that I've got to stay in my room.
So what I want to do is I want to make my way to the window. I'm safe to open it if the doors closed but what if I'm on the 5th floor? What if I'm on the 25th floor? I can't jump out of my window now.
Interviewer: I don't like this scenario you're painting at all. What am I going to do? Tell me.
Annette: Well, so now I know I can't jump so I'm kind of stuck in my room for a while. So what I want to do is pull the sheets off my bed and I want to stuff them right underneath that crack in the door and around the door so I stop that smoke from coming in as quickly as I can. Obviously my first thought is for my safety so I want to get somebody's attention so they can get me out of this burning building as quickly as possible.
It is safe to open the window because your door is closed, it's not going to cause that draft and pull the heat into the room. So I want to get somebody's attention by being at that window. Now obviously if I'm smart I'll also have a flashlight by the bed but I can use the lights if the electricity works to get peoples attention. If not, then to have a flashlight and signal for help and yell and scream out the window so those firefighters who know how to do this, who are experts, can get up to me.
The other thing I might want to think about if I'm maybe on the 3rd or the 4th floor is they have some handy-dandy great ladders that can be used as a fire escape in an emergency situation. If I have one of those I can get out of the house but it's not very helpful if I'm on the 25th floor. I'm pretty sure they don't make ladders that long.
Interviewer: So I'm in my room, my door is closed because I've listened to you. I've checked, it's hot. I would imagine a lot of parents at this point would go, "What about the kids? I need to get out and help the kids." What's the answer to that?
Annette: This is a heart-wrencher, because as a parent of course you want to get your kids out. But we have also many people in saving the children and in saving the hamsters and in saving their dogs, they get severely burn injured. So the key thing is, and this is the kicker, is many people don't want to deal with this because it's kind of an iffy topic and people kind of shy away from things the things that scare us.
But if people practiced their fire escape plans, their home escape plans with their family and they practiced it in the day and they practiced it at night, and they practiced it with their kids and their kids could demonstrate competency in getting out of the house. That muscle memory, that second nature that kicks in when you have fight flight, if you have practiced that then your children are likely to get out of the house.
You may only have two minutes. What's really important is to think about it before. We should just talk about freely in our homes and in our families. Kids love to take responsibility. The kids can be the Fire Marshall and they can prepare the drills and they can have unexpected drills at 2:00 A.M. on a weekend so that parents and everyone can practice crawling out in the dark, going to a safe meeting place and rejoicing with everyone because everyone's got out safe.
Interviewer: You know the worse part about it is that I hear you say all these things and I'm like, "It's never going to happen to me. It sounds like a lot of work." I get totally what you're saying that it has to happen before. You're not going to save lives during, you're going to save lives before. How do you get over that "it's not going to happen to me" barrier?
Annette: Well you know as an ICU Nurse we hear that all the time. Unfortunately because nobody ever thinks it's going to happen to them. It's human nature to think... We don't want to think about bad things. But we need to be motivated enough to engage in preparation and prevention so that we can keep not only ourselves but our loved ones safe and secure. We can know if it happens, and tragedy does, that we did our absolute best that we can to change an awful situation.
Interviewer: I like your idea of turning it into a game to prep for the kids. I bet you the kids would absolutely love that. That's a good idea. What about having a plan where all right you've got the baby, part of the plan is everybody feels their door. If somebody doesn't feel the heat, they are the ones. Like before you plan, they are the ones to go examine to see if the baby's safe. Is that something you can do or is that a bad idea?
Annette: Sure, absolutely. Let's just take there are four people and three of them feel the heat and they're going to get out the window or they're going to stay and they're going to signal for safety. One person doesn't feel the heat. Now not feeling the heat doesn't mean not necessarily hot or dangerous behind the door, so you want to open your door very carefully and slowly because if there is something out there you want to close it really fast.
But if you don't see anything in the hallway and you have a baby next door to you, then you can obviously open up that door, run and grab the baby. Check those corridors because remember if you can see smoke then you need to get underneath it. The toxins that the smoke contains will get into your lungs. Many people don't die from the burn injury; they die from the toxins in the smoke itself. Because the unfortunate thing is it clouds your mind so you can't make very good decisions, so maybe you're not clear.
So you need to get underneath that smoke. You need to crawl either out of the house through your escape route with your child or if you can't escape, you've seen it, there is smoke at the bottom of your stairs and fire down through that exit way, you need to go back into your room and then you need to signal for help from your room. Do all those things under your door. Stuff your blankets underneath so that you and your child can stay safe as long as possible.
Interviewer: Keep your child's, keep your baby's door closed as well.
Annette: Absolutely.
Interviewer: Because then there might be a chance that you get out. The Fire Department shows up, they're still able to save the child.
Annette: Absolutely.
Interviewer: Wow, all right. So get out and practice those drills. Any final thoughts when it comes to what to do if you're trapped in a burning building?
Annette: The other thing that I would say is there's some amazing websites out there. The NFPA website, the Burn Prevention Network, the Safe Kids, they have some great tool kits, some great games for your kids. They have things for adults too but they have really basic important concepts that you can adapt into your homes and make a part of your every day life to make prevention just the same as can I have an egg and some toast in the morning. That's how prevention should be.
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