Guess Whos Coming to Dinner?

By Chief Dennis Compton
November 2004

Meet this year’s holiday dinner guests: Falls, Poisoning and Fires.

Regardless of where your fire department is located, unintentional home injuries are a problem. As a result, all of the above will be the uninvited “guests” at many of the homes in your community this holiday season.

There is no more important time to teach fire safety than during the winter months, when home fire deaths are on the increase. But if your safety educational focus is concentrated solely on cooking and heating fire prevention this winter, you’re not going far enough to protect families in your jurisdiction.

According to the Home Safety Council’s 2004 State of Home Safety in America Report, preventable injuries at home are the leading cause of death for people between the ages of 1 and 44, among all races and both sexes. Unintentional home injuries result in more than 21 million medical visits every year.

Preventable home injuries are a problem in every state, including yours. Nationally, falls are the leading cause of unintentional home injury deaths, followed by poisoning and fires/burns. Choking/suffocation and drowning/submersion are the next most lethal of unintentional home injuries.

As you reach out to your community with winter safety messages, be sure to capture all the leading causes. The Home Safety Council Expert Network Resource Center is a good place to start. You can download educational resources and print out teaching tools – all at no cost.

Why the fire service?

Education is the single most important method you can employ to reduce unintentional home injuries in your community. Each of us is at risk of home injury – and awareness of the risk is the key to prevention. The Home Safety Council calls unintentional injury our nation’s “quiet crisis,” because too few people recognize that they are at risk in their own home.

That’s where you come in. Every family needs to understand that hazards lurk within their home and every family needs your help to identify those hazards and take simple steps to overcome them.

You have a community safety role to play that goes well beyond fire safety. You are first on the scene of every community disaster, not just fires. You are the first responder to all types of home injuries, not just burns and smoke inhalation. Starting today, plan to include all leading causes of unintentional home injury in your safety campaigns.

No other service delivery group can compete with a fire department’s ability to connect and influence the people they serve. Your special relationship with your customers (the people in your jurisdiction) is what sets you apart and sets you up to lead people to make safer decisions.

Ask yourself these questions to find out if you are doing all that you can to reach as many as you can:

• Do people understand what we say? Look at your community objectively and determine if you need to enhance your outreach with materials that can be read and understood by all adults. 90 million adults in America have low English literacy ability – if your materials are text-heavy, you’re missing some of your customers.
• Do we say what we mean? Look at your materials objectively and determine if you need to focus your messages or sharpen your delivery. Utilize audio-visual educational tools. Consider using graphics, photographs and more white space in printed materials.
• Do we mean what we say? Look in the mirror. Are you and the others in your department serving as safety role models? Do you wear your seatbelt in the fire truck? Have you installed fire sprinklers in your newly built home? Do you have a four-sided fence enclosing your swimming pool?

Local Action Item

Every occasion you have to connect with the people in your community is a moment of truth; an opportunity to serve, show you care and deliver your message. Increase these one-on-one meetings and you increase your reach.

As a first step, reach out to the groups below to see if you can expand your department’s reach even more.

• State and area agencies on aging – use this handy Administration on Aging Web site to find groups in your area that can help you reach older adults.
• State and local literacy programs – use this ProLiteracy Web site to locate groups in your area that can help you reach people with low reading levels.
• International City/County Management Association – get involved to help strengthen local government and improve your capability to reach more people with messages of safety.

Chief Dennis Compton
A 34-year veteran of the fire service, Dennis Compton was the Fire Chief in Mesa, AZ and Assistant Fire Chief in Phoenix, AZ. He now serves as an Executive Advisor within many fire service organizations, and is a leading author of books and training manuals. Chief Compton is recognized as a national expert on emergency response and public safety, and he serves on the Home Safety Council Board of Directors. Compton is also active with the International Fire Service Training Association (IFSTA) and the U.S. Congressional Fire Services Institute (CFSI), among other groups.
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