Cooking Matters: Be Fire Safe in the Kitchen
Older Adults
Calling 9-1-1
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Senior Safety Marshals Help Reduce Fire Risk
In the crowded Lily Café, the Prevention 1st Senior Safety Marshals know how to get and keep the attention of their peers. They begin their presentation with a stark fact: “People our age are 6 times more likely to die in a fire.”
The Senior Safety Marshals then share stories of mistakes they themselves have made that put them at risk—a candle left smoldering, falling asleep while smoking, coming home from a night out and carelessly frying some chicken. Their audience nods in recognition. They have all made careless mistakes that could have turned into tragedies.
Finally, the team shares with their fully engaged audience such simple but effective strategies as keeping a phone next to the bed, having good night lighting, turning off the cooktop if they leave the kitchen while cooking, and taking proper precautions if they have oxygen tanks in their home.
Through funding from the John F. Wegman Fund of the Rochester Area Community Foundation and Prevention 1st donors, Prevention 1st recruited and trained the six Safety Marshals through the Lily Café program run by Lifespan at the Maplewood YMCA. Prior to their six weeks of training together, most of the team members didn’t know each other. Now, “we’re a family.”
They’re spreading fire safety messages throughout their communities. Bill, who lives in a housing complex of four buildings, has recruited three volunteers to work with him as fire monitors, communicating with residents about preparation and response and checking fire escapes to make sure they are clear. Sheron is now regularly posting fire safety information and reminders to her friends through Facebook. Inez is determined to make sure that all of her neighbors have working smoke alarms: “The young think ‘It can’t happen to me’ and the old think ‘It hasn’t happened to me yet.’ Well, it can. I ask my neighbors, did you check your smoke alarm, did you change the battery?”
Robert Crandall, the Prevention 1st trainer who trained the Senior Safety Marshals and who is a retired firefighter, noted the effectiveness of this peer-to-peer strategy: “The fire department tells people these things all the time, but when the information is personalized and comes from a peer and neighbor, people are more motivated to take action.”
As the population 65 and older continues to grow, this model has an important role in community safety and in reducing the burden of caregiving, according to Michelle LeBoo, Lifespan Program Coordinator: “They’re providing a type of caregiving. They are caring for their peers, helping them avoid injuries and remain in their homes safely for a longer time.”
Following their presentation to their fellow Café participants, the team is scheduling additional trainings at area senior centers, residences, and other community program sites. They’re also reaching out to potential sponsors to enhance the program with additional safety giveaways and materials, and to attract others to become more involved in fire safety.
In addition to working with the Lily Café participants, the Prevention 1st training team presented to the staff and key volunteers of an additional ten senior organizations, including the Monroe County Office for the Aging, Refugees Helping Refugees, Ontario ARC, Bay View Family YMCA, Monroe Community Hospital, Catholic Family Center, Charles Settlement House, and the Summit at Brighton, ultimately reaching well over 1,000 older adults.
If you’d like to learn more about the Senior Safety Marshals program, please contact Molly Clifford at (585) 383-6507 or MollyClifford@prevention1st.org
Protect Your Hearing
When we think of preventable injuries, we may not think of our ears. But hearing loss is a growing health issue for both adolescents and older Americans, with 48 million people nationwide suffering from hearing loss.
The good news is that noise-induced hearing loss is completely preventable. Take these tips from the National Hearing Loss Association of America.
Remember, the noise is too loud when:
- You have to raise your voice to be understood by someone standing nearby;
- The noise hurts your ears;
- You develop a buzzing or ringing sound in your ears, even temporarily;
- You don’t hear as well as you normally do until several hours after you get away from the noise.
Protect yourself by:
- Following the “60/60 Rule,” which means limiting the use of ear bud headphones to 60 minutes at a time and at 60 percent of the device’s maximum volume;
- When around loud noise, protect yourself by:
- Turning down the volume if you can;
- Blocking the noise (with earplugs or ear defenders);
- Avoiding the noise (put your hands over your ears if you can’t walk away).
Protect your children and teens as well, especially by monitoring their use of personal listening devices. According to the CDC, 5 in 10 young people listen to their music or other audio too loudly, and 4 in 10 young people are around dangerously loud noises during events like concerts and sports games. If your child is wearing ear buds and you can hear the sound while standing next to them, the music is too loud. Share steps that young people can take to prevent noise-induced hearing loss, like moving away from speakers at a concert, and using hearing protection when they can’t avoid loud noise.
Ototoxic medications, including some over-the-counter drugs such as aspirin in high doses, some antibiotics, and some chemotherapy drugs, can also cause hearing loss. Ask your doctor if hearing loss is one of the possible side-effects of a medication and if it is, whether there is a substitute medication that would work just as well for you.
Learn more about how to prevent, diagnose, and live with hearing loss.
Company’s Coming: Preventing Injuries During the Season of Visitors
After several years of small or nonexistent gatherings, many families are looking forward to all being together. Young children and older adults may now be part of your household for a few hours or days. Whatever the length of the visit, now’s the time to check your home for hazards you may not have considered during the year:
- Do you have good lighting at the top and bottom of stairs? Sturdy handrails on all stairs? You need these year-round, but they’re even more important when you have visitors who are less familiar with your home–especially older relatives who may have vision or mobility challenges.
- What’s on your floors now? Children’s toys, visitors’ shoes, the food dishes of visiting pets—all of these can become tripping hazards. Keep pathways clear.
- Speaking of pets, do your holiday decorations include plants that are poisonous? Most people believe poinsettias are the most dangerous to pets. But according to veterinarians, poinsettias can cause illness but are unlikely to be fatal. Much more dangerous are bulb plants like amaryllis and lilies. Holly and mistletoe are also considered moderately to highly toxic to pets. Learn about other plants that can be poisonous for pets here.
- What’s on the guest room nightstand? Visitors accustomed to leaving their medications in easy reach may need to be gently reminded to keep them out of sight and reach when there are young children around. That could include grandma’s purse if it contains medications.
- If the smoke alarm goes off tonight, would everyone be able to get out? Tell overnight guests about your family’s fire escape plan, including your meeting place, and show them how to open deadbolts or security bars. Guests with mobility challenges may need sleeping areas on the ground floor (Learn more about planning and practicing your home escape at homefiredrill.org)
Learn more about reducing hazards of all kinds at http://prevention1st.org/safety-resources/
17 Quick, Easy, Inexpensive Ways to Stay Safe at Home
“Safe at home.” It’s how we feel when we close the door behind us at the end of a long day. But how often do we take a moment to make sure we truly are as safe as we feel in our own homes? Preventable injuries — including home fires and burns, household poisons, drowning and falls — are the leading cause of death for children, teens and young adults (you’ll be glad to know “young” means up to age 44). They’re one of the leading causes of death for older adults too. Let’s say you’re not afraid of dying. Why take the time to be safer?
- You have better places to spend time than the emergency department. Injuries account for more than a third of all emergency department visits. The average wait time in EDs across the country is four hours and seven minutes, according to the engrossing reading of a recent Emergency Department Pulse Report. What would you rather do with those four hours?
- Safer is cheaper. Injuries cost the nation $80 billion every year in medical costs alone. The estimated lifetime cost of injuries occurring in a single year in the U.S is more than $406 billion. No matter how good your health insurance is, an injury can take hundreds or thousands of dollars straight out of your pocket.
- You want to get on with your life. A broken hip from a fall that could have been prevented may keep you from enjoying your normal activities for months. And do you really want to spend Rochester’s brief summer in the rehab center?
You say you just don’t have time to prevent injuries? If you’ve got less than one minute to devote to safety, use it to:
- Wipe up a spill right away. Falls are the leading causeof nonfatal unintentional injuries for every age group, except 10 to 24 year olds—and for them it’s the second leading cause! Wiping up spills is one of several simple ways to prevent falls.
- Not leave a child alone near water (yes, even for less than a minute). Kids don’t drown only in pools. Bathtubs, buckets, toilets, and hot tubs can be drowning dangers as well.
- Test your smoke alarm to make sure it’s still working, and everyone in your household can hear it. Even alarms that are hard-wired or have long-life batteries need to be checked. You should have at least one working smoke alarm on each floor, and one inside every sleeping area is best. Consider having both ionization and photoelectric alarms, or dual alarms that incorporate both technologies. Ionization smoke alarms respond best to flaming fires, and photoelectric to smoldering fires.
- Put away matches or lighters in a high cabinet or locked drawer, out of sight and reach of children. Children playing with fire is a leading cause of fire deaths for children under age 5.
- Turn off portable space heaters when you leave the room or go to sleep. Space heaters are involved in 32% of heating fires but cause 82% of associated deaths and 64% of injuries.
- Adjust the thermostat on your water heater to keep hot water less than 120°F, to prevent scalds.
- Turn off the stove if you have to leave the kitchen while cooking. Unattended equipment is the #1 contributing factor in cooking fire deaths.
- Put on your glasses and read the fine print on that medicine bottle. Unintentional poisonings have risen steadily since 1992, and for people 35 to 54 years old, they’re causing more deaths than motor vehicle crashes. Know how much, and how often, you can safely take any medication whether prescription or over-the-counter, as well as possible interactions with other drugs.
- Keep the metal mesh screen of your fireplace closed, but leave glass doors open while burning a fire. The U.S. Fire Administration says leaving the doors open gives the fire enough air and keeps creosote from building up in the chimney. The screen helps keep embers from getting out of the fireplace. Close the glass doors when the fire is out to keep air from the chimney from getting into the room.
If you can find just a few minutes use them to:
- Put away household cleaners and medications in a place that’s out of sight and reach of children.
- Clear clutter from hallways and exits to prevent tripping.
- Install handrails on stairs and adequate lighting at the top and bottom of the stairs. Leading causes of adult injuries include falls from stairs, steps and ladders.
- Use this fire safety checklist to check your home for hazards.
- Call to schedule an annual chimney cleaning.
- Play Help Mikey Make It Out with your kids. This fun, interactive game at www.homefiredrill.org teaches life-saving home escape lessons.
- Plan and practice your home escape. Working smoke alarms and CO detectors save lives, but does everyone in your home know what to do when they sound–especially in the middle of the night? Does everyone know your meeting place outside, where you can find each other and firefighters can find you? Visit www.homefiredrill.org.
- Check the manufacturers instructions to see if you should replace your CO detector. New York State law requires CO detectors to be installed in all new and existing homes having any fuel-burning appliance or attached garage. But you need a new detector every two to 10 years, depending on the model. Carbon monoxide kills in minutes, and unlike smoke from a fire it’s colorless, tasteless and odorless. It can be created by open flames, space heaters, water heaters, blocked chimneys or running a car inside a garage (even with the door open). If you have only one carbon monoxide detector, the Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends it be located near the sleeping area, where it can wake you.