Articles Posted in Resources

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Fire claims the lives of many people each year and destroys their properties and belongings. The incidence of home fires increases in winter and many of them can be prevented if simple safety measures are followed. The United States Fire Administration (USFA) estimates that each winter, more than 108,000 residential building fires occur in the United States, resulting in 945 deaths, 3,825 injuries and about $1.7 billion in property loss.

As burns caused by fire are the leading cause of household injuries, there are simple preventive measures that can be taken to decrease or prevent such injuries which include:

  1. Installing a smoke detector and making sure it is working properly by checking it at least once a year.
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Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, odorless and tasteless gas. It is quite toxic to humans and other oxygen-breathing organisms. Carbon monoxide poisoning happens when enough carbon monoxide is inhaled. (See carbon monoxide poisoning)

Low levels of carbon monoxide are always present in air. It can also be produced from incomplete combustion of flame fueled devices such as fireplaces, furnaces, stoves, vehicles, space heaters and others.

Breathing carbon monoxide fumes decreases the blood’s ability to carry oxygen. Low levels of oxygen can lead to cell death, including cells in vital organs such as the brain and heart.

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Fires and burns are one of leading causes of household injuries. Simple things can be done to prevent or decrease these risks of fires and the resulting burns which include:

  • Have a proper escape plan in case of an emergency.
  • Make sure that a smoke detector is installed and it is working properly.
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Is a governmental agency that investigates and responds to any case of potential child abuse or neglect. Its purpose is to ensure that children are safe and to prevent any further abuse or neglect by the parents or the legal caregivers. CPS also helps families to get the services needed to guarantee a safe and a healthy home. CPS protects children from physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect by the parents or the legal caregivers.

A suspected case of child abuse or neglect must be reported. Anyone can report a case of child abuse or neglect but professions who have regular contact with children like hospital personnel, teachers, social workers, and police are required to report suspected cases of child abuse or neglect by New York state law. The person who reports a case doesn’t need to have any evidence of child abuse or neglect. A suspicion to a reasonable degree based on behaviors, observation and other information is enough to make a report. The 24 hour New York State Central Register number is 1-800-342-3720. When calling the person will be asked specific information and the report will be accepted if the information provided meets the legal criteria for child abuse or neglect. Depending on the county that the family lives in, the report will be given to the CPS in that area.

The CPS will assign a caseworker to meet the family and assess the situation to determine if there is child abuse or neglect and the steps required to deal with it if there is a case.

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In mid June, hundreds of frightened residents were evacuated from a multi-story apartment building when smoke filled their apartments from a simple stove fire that grew out of control. The fire spread so quickly that flames leaped up three floors of the large building in the town of Hempstead, N.Y.

Witnesses recalled seeing residents of the Fulton Manor apartment building with their heads out open windows, screaming for help, before firefighters came to their aid in high-rise ladder buckets. The firefighters pulled more than a dozen people out of their windows to safety. Some of the residents were becoming so overcome by smoke that they were yelling that they were going to jump from their windows.

About 30 people were treated at hospitals for smoke inhalation after they were evacuated from the seven-story building. The cause of the fire was a stove malfunction in an apartment on the second floor. The fire spread quickly to the walls of that apartment, and created a lot of smoke containing deadly carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide.

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On May 4, 2012, New York City police rescued five people, including a baby boy and another child, who were trapped in a smoky kitchen fire in Rockaway Beach, NY because they could not open a jammed apartment door.

A police sergeant on another call spotted a 21-year-old man leaning out of a smoke-filled sixth-floor window in a public housing project about 7 p.m. The man was yelling, “Help! There’s children inside!”

The police officers and members of the city’s Emergency Services Unit team went to the sixth-floor apartment, but found that the door lock was broken inside the door, so the door would not open. Trapped inside were a baby, a boy, their mom, and two visitors, as a kitchen fire raged. The blaze had begun as a grease fire in the kitchen, at the front of the apartment.

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In Coachella, CA this week, a driver suffered severe burns when propane tanks in the back of his pickup truck exploded while he waited with his family in a drive-through at a McDonald’s restaurant.

It was about 1:45 p.m. on a Saturday when the man heard a hissing noise coming from one of two tanks. When he stepped into the back of his pickup to check on the leaking tank, he created static electricity that ignited the leaking gas and caused a gas explosion in both tanks.

The blast had so much force that it caused the roof of the truck to buckle and the tailgate to blow off, striking a vehicle behind it. The fire engulfed the truck, scorched part of the drive-through, and damaged the roof of the restaurant

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On April 12, Newark Mayor Cory Booker saved a neighbor from a blazing house fire — a dramatic rescue that he admitted was absolutely terrifying.

The dramatic rescue began at around 9:30 p.m. that night, when Booker and two officers from the Mayor’s security team spotted a fire at a house on Hawthorne Avenue belonging to Booker’s neighbor. They went over to investigate.

On the first floor, they found a couple, who told them that the woman’s daughter and a man were trapped upstairs. Booker and Newark Detective Alex Rodriguez then went to the top of the stairs, where the home’s kitchen had erupted in flames.

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Since the start of April, there have been more than a dozen deaths around the United States from smoke inhalation during fires in houses and other buildings. This is a clear indication that smoke from fire is even more dangerous to people than the flames themselves. Why? Because it only takes one or two breaths of smoke to cause a person to become unconscious, and become unable to escape a burning building. And just a few more breaths of the hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide in the smoke can kill a person.

Here is a grim example from just last week: In Northeastern Pennsylvania, a four-month-old girl was killed by smoke inhalation in a fast-moving fire in a trailer home. The county coroner said that the girl died of carbon monoxide poisoning from the smoke, although all other occupants got out safely or were rescued by neighbors. The infant was not able to be rescued in time from her bassinet. Three boys and a woman were treated at Geisinger Community Medical Center in Scranton and released, while a man was admitted in stable condition.

The local fire chief stated that the trailer was engulfed in flames when he arrived. He and a state police fire marshal said the cause is unknown, but the fire is not believed to be suspicious.

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A recent article from the Institute for NanoBioTechnology discussed the developments that Johns Hopkins researchers have made in creating a jelly-like material for burn wound treatment which, in early experiments on skin damaged by severe burns, seemed to regenerate healthy tissue with no sign of the previous burn scars.

In a mid-December report from the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers reported their promising results from tests using mouse tissue. The new treatment has not yet been tested on human patients, but the researchers say that the procedure, which promotes the formation of new blood vessels and skin, could lead to greatly improved healing for victims of third degree burns.

The treatment involved a simple wound dressing that included a specially designed hydrogel: a water-based, three-dimensional framework of polymers. This material was developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins’ Whiting School of Engineering, working with clinicians at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center Burn Center and the School of Medicine’s Department of Pathology.

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