Smoke alarms fail to wake children.

Neyite

I hope I'm not scaremongering here but I've just read this article and I had always assumed that a fire/ carbon monoxide alarm would wake all inhabitants of a house or apartment. It never occurred to me that a child could sleep through that ear-splitting din.

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-38918056

Dave Coss, watch manager at Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service, got involved in the research after the deaths of six children in a house fire in Derby in 2012, which was started deliberately by their parents.

The children, aged five to 13, all slept through the sound of smoke alarms.
Mick Philpott was jailed for life for manslaughter, while his wife, Mairead, and an accomplice were sentenced to 17 years.

Mr Coss told me: "When we investigated this tragic case, we thought the children may have been incapacitated in some way and prevented from getting up, as all were found in their beds."

He said that toxicology reports proved negative, so the only other option was that "the children didn't respond to the smoke detector and just carried on sleeping".

Mr Coss and Prof Nic Daeid conducted tests involving smoke alarms in the homes of 34 children aged between two and 13.

Each child was tested six times in their own home and were not warned that the smoke alarm was to be set off.

Twenty-seven children slept through the alarms on all six tests. Seven children, all girls, woke at least once.
None of the boys woke during the tests.

The investigators are trialling a new smoke alarm designed to hit the correct decibel level intended to wake children and I'm interested to see the results of it. And it's made me think about doing a fire audit of our house and a fire drill too. Have you/do you do drills in your home?

mikeoneilly

They're supposed to be within a certain distance from bedrooms

3 metres I think.Probably wasn't here

bp

My kids don't wake for the fire or house alarm and it is in the correct position.

It is scarey. Kids can sleep through a lot. Mine are too young for fire drills but will start when the eldest turns 5 (only three)

Neyite

mikeoneilly wrote: »

They're supposed to be within a certain distance from bedrooms

3 metres I think.Probably wasn't here

I think that in tests, they were within 3m.

bp wrote: »

My kids don't wake for the fire or house alarm and it is in the correct position.

It is scarey. Kids can sleep through a lot. Mine are too young for fire drills but will start when the eldest turns 5 (only three)

My child's nearly 5, plus I know they had a fire drill in Montessori not too long ago as part of their safety week so I think I'll do one very soon.

ectoraige

You can buy bedwetting alarms that sound an alarm when the child wets themselves at night, it had a number of different alarm sounds to choose from as some would work better than others.

jameorahiely

Yes. We do fire drills. Also have a rondeveuz point and have explained to the kids it's in case someone goes back in to look for them and they are standing outside somewhere else

mordeith

Even if a child hears the alarm there is no guarantee they will react in any proper way. For me smoke alarms wake the parents who then sort out the kids.

Ms2011

Our house alarm went off last week at 3am during the high winds, neither of my kids woke up & it's ear splitting.
Myself & my husband woke straight away though, it's amazing what kids can sleep through.

dori_dormer

Our house alarm is in the hall and doesn't wake the kids. We have the wired in fire alarms, one in every room. They haven't gone off yet but older boy sleeps like a log.
Even if kids woke I don't think they'd have a clue what to do till ten yrs old minimum. If there's smoke they'd be practically blind and would just panic and scream most likely.

Moonbeam

Neither the house alarm or smoke alarm wakes all my kids ,they sleep like logs .
Everything wakes me though .

Sunny Dayz

I didn't realise it but actually it is true. The batteries in our smoke and carbon monoxide alarms always start to run low on battery and beep in the middle of the night. Happened recently with the carbon monoxide alarm upstairs, it did the intermittent beeps for ages as I couldn't get the battery case open and I was nearly climbing the walls with frustration and tiredness!
Young fella never stirred.

skallywag

I remember discussing this same point with a friend some years back, and it seems that having a recording of a parents voice telling the child to get up is much more effective than the normal high pitched wailing.

Just took a google and found something that appears to be relevant ...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17015555

pwurple

Eek, I'm going straight to hell.  The first thought that crossed my mind was "Wow, we could be having way noisier sex!"


Back on topic though... our smoke alarms are in each of the bedrooms, and we've rehearsed escape routes, but not middle of the night waking. And they send alerts, so my parents who live down the road get a message as well. 
There has never been a death in Ireland in a house with smoke alarms as far as I know (or at least that's what they told us in fire safety training at work),

Neyite

pwurple wrote: »

Eek, I'm going straight to hell. The first thought that crossed my mind was "Wow, we could be having way noisier sex!"

Nope. They hear that. They can even hear the non-verbal eye-signals between parents when they try to arrange a nap time siesta for themselves. It's the same decibel level as foil unwrapping on secret chocolate. Ears like bats when it comes to things like those.

Moonbeam

pwurple wrote: »

Eek, I'm going straight to hell.  The first thought that crossed my mind was "Wow, we could be having way noisier sex!"


Back on topic though... our smoke alarms are in each of the bedrooms, and we've rehearsed escape routes, but not middle of the night waking. And they send alerts, so my parents who live down the road get a message as well. 
There has never been a death in Ireland in a house with smoke alarms as far as I know (or at least that's what they told us in fire safety training at work),

Ha, their inbuilt "There will be no more babies sensor" goes off.
No noise needed.

The same way they can sense/hear you opening a chocolate bar or going to the loo a mile away.