Why Flashing Smoke Alarms are Needed

From the newsroom of The Cincinnati Post, Ohio, Thursday, September 23, 1999 ....

Flashing smoke alarm makes priceless gift from Red Cross

By Geoff Williams, Post staff reporter

The alarm was screeching. But Mary Wallace, 77, couldn't hear it.

The smoke was filling the apartment, and her neighbor, Sarah Abrams, 19, was pounding on the front door. But it was 6 a.m., and Ms. Wallace was still asleep. It wasn't until Ms. Abrams raced around to the bedroom window, banging on the glass with a broom, that Ms. Wallace opened her eyes.

If a smoke alarm goes off, and if nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Yes, of course, but it's worthless. That's why the Cincinnati chapter of the American Red Cross is giving away Silent Call, the name of a smoke alarm that's designed to alert people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing.

Ms. Wallace isn't deaf, but old age has claimed much of her hearing ability. When strangers talk to her, they are told to speak up. And a few weeks ago, when the Fort Mitchell, Ky., resident was sleeping, the smoke alarm was in full swing. And Ms. Wallace couldn't hear it.

Meanwhile, in the next apartment, "I could hear it in my living room," recalls Ms. Abrams, who managed to assist Ms. Wallace out of the apartment, which was so infested with smoke that the septuagenarian couldn't see her hand, let alone find her cane, glasses or slippers. The stovetop had been left on the night before, resulting in, says Ms. Abrams, "a really, really, really melted coffee pot."

Now, Ms. Wallace has a new smoke alarm. If a fire ever starts in her home again, and she's asleep, she'll be ready. The smoke alarm releases the standard screech for any hearing people around, and then a radio-transmitter signals a warning system in one of two ways: The user can either have the alarm emit a blinding white light or a vibrator, placed underneath the pillow, will shake the sleeper into action.

The latter is how Ms. Wallace will be alerted, should she ever have another fire.

"The alarm looks like just a little toy. At first, I thought, 'Well, how's that going to help'? Well, I found out," says Ms. Wallace, who tried it out with the assistance of the fire department. "If you've got it under your pillow, it'll shake you like something else."

The Red Cross has already given away 400 alarms, says Dawn L. Butsch, the disaster project specialist for the Cincinnati chapter of the American Red Cross. The goal is to give out 1,200 more by January.

Cincinnati is the only Red Cross chapter in the country to give these out for free, notes Bob Coltrane, coordinator of the Community Services for the Deaf in Avondale. "They can be modest about it, but this is really neat. . . . This program is really special."

And these smoke alarms don't come cheap. Not at the current retail price of $195.92. Which is why the Red Cross will only supply enough smoke alarms for each deaf, or hard-of-hearing, person's bedroom, since that is where they are the most vulnerable.

But not as many people have clamored for the smoke alarms, as one might expect. Not because they're rejecting the alarms, but because they don't know about them.

"There are people out there who are isolated, who perhaps aren't in the mainstream of deafness," says Coltrane, who hopes to spread the word to the hearing-impaired community any way that he can.

Ms. Butsch hopes to, too.

She says that the Red Cross's latest strategy has been to go through the school system, locating children in need of these alarms and distributing them that way.

The smoke alarms are being distributed in 21 counties in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky; the only county in Greater Cincinnati that isn't covered is Butler, which is developing a distribution smoke alarm for the deaf program of its own.

For those who have the alarms, the reaction has, not surprisingly, been positive, says Coltrane.

"There's a (deaf) mom who has a small child - about a year old now, and that child has never slept in its own room, except for naps, because the mother never felt safe. The child has been in the bedroom with the mother and father every night next to their bed in a crib, so that she could be right next to the child."

But recently, says Coltrane, the mother was given one of these alarms, and she can finally feel comfortable enough to let her baby sleep alone.

Ms. Wallace is feeling comfortable shutting her eyes at night, too. "I feel a lot safer now, believe me. . . . I sleep very soundly."