Smart Safety Solutions

Safety Tip

This is a story about how a girl named Tina almost burned down her apartment building. This is partly because she had had a little bit too much to drink and partly because she didn't know that halogen lamps were a fire hazard. Fortunately, Tina remembered a safety tip or two she learned about fire safety.

After Tina and her friends got home from a Saturday night out on the town, they decided to stop at a 24-hour fast food place to grab a sandwich. Before she had her sandwich when she got home, she wanted to wash her face, but she didn't want her sandwich to get cold, so she put the bag with the sandwich on it on top of the halogen lamp. When she returned, the bag was on fire, so she ran to get a cup of water to throw on it. Before she threw the water on it though, she thought, "There's something I have to do first. What is it? WHAT IS IT?" Then she remembered--she had to unplug the lamp first. Otherwise, she'd put herself at risk for electrocution. So she unplugged the lamp. At this point, her friend Stephanie got off the phone. She had seen the smoke filling the apartment, so she asked Tina, "What the heck are you burning?" Tina explained the fire to Stephanie, who was more sober, and Stephanie took the lamp out to the dumpster. Tina opened all the windows in the apartment to let the smoke out. It was the middle of winter, so it got pretty cold pretty fast. Then Tina remembered something she learned as a child--smoke rises! So she checked on her roommate Carol, who had been really drunk. She was passed out on her bed. Tina and Stephanie decided it would be a good idea to put her on the floor. They couldn't wake her, so they sort of just rolled her onto the floor.

The next morning, Carol woke up and asked, "Why is it so cold in here?" At that point, Tina and Stephanie explained everything. The irony of the situation is that weeks before, the smoke detector was beeping because it needed a new battery. Carol took it down and laid it on the coffee table. She thought Tina was getting the new battery, and Tina thought Carol was getting the new battery. So during the fire, the smoke alarm never went off.

Identifying More than One Safety Tip in This Story

There are several things you can take away from this story:

Safety tip #1: Don't put food on top of a halogen lamp.
Safety tip #2: Don't pour water on an electrical appliance unless it's unplugged.
Safety tip #3: Stop, drop and roll!
Safety tip #4: Replace your smoke detector batteries immediately.

Tina must not have been the first person to ever have this kind of trouble with a halogen lamp, because now they have a safety grid on top of the bulbs to prevent fires. Hopefully you learned at least one new safety tip from Tina's story.