Keep Your Family Safe at Home
What you can do to keep you and your family safe at home? Keeping your family out of harm’s way is your Number 1 priority. Unfortunately, many of our homes can be dangerous – preventable injuries and deaths continue to rise in homes and communities. The Council estimates everyday approximately 245 people die of unintentional injuries in homes and communities. In 2007, the six leading causes of unintentional injury death in the U.S. were: Motor vehicle crashes Poisonings, including unintentional overdoses Falls Choking Drowning Fires, flames and smoke When someone is injured, the effects go beyond that person and extend to family members, friends, neighbors, employers and communities. The key to preventing injuries is making simple changes to your lifestyle – recognizing where most hazards are and how injuries can occur when participating in different activities. Below are a few of the many strategies to prevent injuries: Stay off your cell phone when you are driving. Your safety practices directly influence the safety practices of your children. Get trained in first aid, CPR and AED online or in a classroom. Check and if necessary, change the batteries on your smoke and carbon monoxide detector. Properly dispose of unused and expired medications. Share these strategies with family, friends and neighbors. Explore more safety practices in the new safety at home sections including, home and recreational safety, motor vehicle safety, emergency preparedness, and family safety training. You can play a large part in keeping those around safe and...
Read MorePrevent Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
An odorless and colorless gas causes carbon monoxide poisoning. Carbon monoxide poisoning can kill you. But carbon monoxide poisoning can be prevented. Burning any fuel produces carbon monoxide. This means any fuel-burning appliance in your home is a potential source. Poisoning comes from inhaling enough of the gas that it replaces oxygen in the blood. Gas central heating, space heaters, fireplaces, furnaces, wood burning stoves, and water heaters are all leading sources of carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide can escape if these devices leak or are poorly vented. Exhaust from a car parked in a closed garage can also be a source. The Carbon Monoxide and Gas Safety Society says that on average, carbon monoxide poisoning kills 40 people a year and injures around 300. But it believes cases are under reported as there is no automatic testing for CO of people who die suddenly. Symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning The initial symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are similar to the flu but without fever. They include: Dizziness Fatigue Headache Nausea Irregular breathing If you have any of these symptoms — and if you feel better when you go outside your home but the symptoms reappear once you’re back inside — you may have carbon monoxide poisoning. If carbon monoxide poisoning is known or suspected: Get out of the building or car where the carbon monoxide is present. Keep still. (This will conserve oxygen in the blood, which is already at a low level because carbon monoxide has partially replaced it.) It is important that you get treated right away. At the hospital, you will probably get oxygen therapy through a mask. Tips for preventing carbon monoxide poisoning: Install at least one smoke alarm and carbon monoxide alarm on every level of your home and near bedrooms. The alarm should meet the latest Underwriters Laboratories (UL) safety standard and comply with local regulations for placement in the home. Call a certified professional to inspect, clean, and tune up the central heating system and repair leaks. Monitor appliances, chimneys, and vents for visible soot, rust, stains, blockage, or corrosion. Also have them inspected each year. When in use, make sure they vent properly to allow gas to escape from enclosed areas. Don’t close the fireplace or damper before the fire is completely out. Open flues when fireplaces are in use. Hire a professional to clean your chimney at least once a...
Read MoreProtect Your Home from Fires
Protecting your home and family from catastrophes is best done early. Here how to prepare for house fires. More Americans die in house fires every year than in all natural disasters combined. When in doubt, escape the building, but if you judge that you can safely mount a fire-extinguisher battle, there are two rules you need to know. Rule one: Stay 6 feet from the flames so you don’t torch the rest of your house by air-blasting a nascent fire across the room. Rule two: People often forget rule one and make things worse, so keep your escape route to your back when you pull the trigger. More than 50 percent of fatal house fires occur between 11 pm and 7 am (peak hours for all fires are 5 pm to 8 pm), so practice two ways out of every room at night. And make sure at least one of them does not rely on a stairwell, which can easily become a deadly vortex of gas, smoke, heat and flame. “Homes are the only occupancy in the country allowed by code to have an open staircase,” says house-fire expert John Norman, a retired chief for the Fire Department of New York. “We call them chimneys. They serve as channels for fire as it moves upwards.” Finally, it may sound basic, but picking an outside rendezvous point is critical, so you can discover quickly who’s made it out of the house and who...
Read MoreProtect Your Home from Lightning
Severe weather in the form of powerful electricity and heat make lightning doubly dangerous. Some people love a great thunderstorm; others are petrified by the first flash of lightning or rumble of thunder. Love ’em or hate ’em, thunderstorms produce lightning that is dangerous. But there are easy steps you can take to protect your home and property (and your life) from lightning. Avoid using landline telephones and water (showering, washing your hands or dishes)during a storm. Electricity follows wiring and metal pipes, but water also conducts electricity so you could be electrocuted if you’re touching water. Protect Electronics from Severe Weather If lightning hits your house or nearby power lines, it can follow the wiring or phone lines into your home — ruining computers, TVs, stereos and other electronics. Your homeowner’s insurance may or may not cover damage from lightning. But one safeguard against electronics being “fried” by lightning is simply to unplug them whenever you’re expecting rain or a storm. Disconnect Internet, antenna and satellite-dish connections, even if your TV antenna is grounded (connected to the Earth by metal wires or cables so electricity has a quick path to the soil). Surge protectors help protect equipment from power spikes (and distant lightning strikes that hit the electrical grid). But nearby lightning is so powerful it can jump through surge protectors. It’s been known to jump across an entire room (called side-flashing). When this happens, anything — or anyone — in its path could be in danger. Reduce the Risk of Fire You might want to consider protecting an entire building. Lightning rods protect a building from catching fire, not from electrical surges. They don’t increase or decrease the chance of lightning striking your house; they just provide a path for the electricity to reach the ground more safely. The rods at the top of the building are only the first part of a good system. Lightning hits the rods (instead of the building itself) because they’re higher than other points on the building. But when lightning strikes, the electricity needs to move to the ground. Cables conduct electricity from the lightning rods to the ground stakes (buried metal rods), and each connection must be secure so lightning doesn’t jump to the building. Lightning rods are not 100 percent effective in eliminating fires from lightning, but they reduce the likelihood of a lightning strike igniting the building. Understand...
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