“Practice Your Escape Plan!" is the theme this year. It's not enough to have a home fire escape plan. To escape safely, you've got to make sure everyone in the home has practicedthe plan. Michele Gobush, RN, a nurse in the Burn Treatment Center and a member of Burn Center Puppeteers at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, talks more about fire safety and prevention:
Why is it as important to practice a home fire escape plan?
It’s important to have a plan and practice your plan. If there is a fire or an emergency, stress responses kick in and people are not able to think clearly and rationally about how to get out of the home. They panic. But if you have a plan and you practice the plan, you’re more likely to go into automatic mode and follow that plan and get out. And it’s especially true with children. If you practice the plan and have that repetition, they’re less likely to become frightened and hide, and more likely to get out.
What should a fire safety escape plan include?
A fire escape plan should have two ways out of every room. The plan should include a meeting place outside the home, a place that everybody goes to and doesn’t leave until everyone is there so they know everybody is out safely. And never, ever, ever go back inside a burning building.
At what age are children able to understand and participate in a fire escape plan?
Well, every child is different, so I’m not sure what the perfect age is, but again, it is important to practice the plan frequently. The children will catch on and understand sooner. And repetition is always good with children.
In the Burn Treatment Center, is there a difference in the degree of injuries in those families that have a practiced plan and those that do not when they arrive at the center?
Well, if they have a plan and they practice the plan and they get out of the burning building, we should never see them in the burn center.
You are also a puppeteer for the Burn Center. What role do the puppets play in fire prevention?
Our “Kids on the Block” puppets are an educational program that is fun and entertaining for the children to learn about fire safety and burn prevention. They tend to pay attention to the puppets more than an adult just simply telling them how dangerous a fire can be.
How many puppets are there in the program and what role does each play?
We have three puppets, two girls and a boy, that act as regular kids that get into different types of situations and sing different songs. We do have a puppet that has burn injuries on her, and we only use her when we go to school re-entries when a child has been burned and is going back to school. We’ll go to the school to do education to his or her specific classroom.
Where do you and your colleagues perform?
Our primary focus is the third and fourth grade at local elementary schools and schools in the eastern Iowa area. But we also go to state and county fairs and to safety fairs in the community. Since beginning the program about 10 years ago, we have reached approximately 20,000 kids in those different areas.
Third and fourth grade – is that age when the puppet program is most appropriate?
That is the age that the skit and the songs are geared toward education-wise. So that is they glean the most from the program.
If a pre-school or early educational teacher is interested in having the puppets come to their classroom, how do they go about doing that?
They can visit the Burn Treatment Center www.uihealthcare.com/burn. There is a link to the Safe Start Burn Prevention program and the contact information is on there. |
