Cambridge Fire Safety
www.city.cambridge.on.ca
Kitchener Fire Safety
www.kitchener.ca
Waterloo Fire Safety
www.city.waterloo.on.ca
Waterloo Regional Police – Streetproofing Tips
www.wrps.on.ca
SAVED LIVES
The following are just two accounts of lives that have been changed as a result of the Children’s Safety Village in our local community…..
An eight year old boy managed to shout a warning to his younger sister just in time to prevent her from being hit by a street weeper on a residential street. Although her bike was damaged, she escaped unharmed. When asked about the incident, the boy said he had learned about the meaning of the back-up light at the Children’s Safety Village.
This “good news” story was sent in by the Organizational Leader of Environmental Services for the City of Waterloo. The letter was sent because they wanted to reinforce the important work being done at the Village.
The following is an excerpt from the letter:
“When I got to the site and spoke to the young boy involved he informed us that it was actually his older sister’s bike that had been damaged. Both children had been following close behind the sweeper, in the driver’s blind spot unfortunately. The sweeper has, in fact, a back-up alarm that sounds as soon as the machine goes into reverse. However, when both engines are operating at a high RPM. As was the case, the alarm is only barely audible. When I spoke to the young boy about the incident, he told me that he had learned about the meaning of the white back-up lights at the Safety Village and when he saw it activate on the sweeper he shouted a warning to his sister, who did not realize that the sweeper was backing, up which probably saved her life. Lucky for all, only the bike was damaged.”
…..Constable Barb Young, who teaches the Road Safety Program at the Village, had this to say about the letter, “We get many letters like this one and they affirm for us the importance of the work we are doing. It’s why we do what we do.”…..
She advised the information on back-up lights is provided to grade one students during the walking tour of the Village. It is addressed when students hear the chirping sound emitting form the Village’s walking signal equipped for the visually impaired. Some students make the connection to the back up audible alarms on certain larger vehicles. Constable Young says the importance of both listening for the back – up alarms and watching of back-u plights is emphasized.
The Cambridge Reporter
Thirteen-year-old Dawna Neufeld knew exactly what to do. Following the instructions she’d been taught at the Children’s Safety Village Fire Education Center, Neufeld put a damp towel over her mouth and nose, checked her sister and mother’s bedrooms and then got out of her town house after the screaming wail of a smoke detector alerted her to a fire in the kitchen one muggy night last July. “I didn’t have time to think or to be afraid, I just did what I was taught,” the Grade 8 Stewart Ave School student said in an interview this week at her home……just as vividly as Neufeld remembers a fatal fire in her complex a couple years before, she recalls the visit her Grade 4 class made to the fire education centre on Maple Grove Road in Cambridge. Like for so many classes before and since, the tour supplemented the information Neugelf and her classmates been taught in school and at home. But it was the actual walk through the fire house – where students are give a controlled demonstration of what happens when there is a fire – that prepared her for the night of July 17…….Some time before 11 p.m. a fire sparked in the kitchen when a bagel everyone thought had popped earlier was in fact jammed and holding the toaster in the on position. The heat was intensifying and scorching 6the countertop and a top cupboard. Smoke was billowing through the two-story home when the smoke alarm went off. “Originally I thought it was my alarm clock going off”, Neufeld said. But she could smell smoke in her upstairs bedroom. The first floor kitchen and living room were already filled with an acrid cloud. “They told us to stay low, cover our face and get out as quickly as possible and that’s exactly what I did after checking m y mom and sister’s rooms,” she said. Neufeld ran to a neighbours who called 9-1-1…..Captain Bill Donahue, the Cambridge Fire Department’s public education officer, said “she did everything right. Dawna knew exactly what to do. She stayed calm, kept her wits and did everything she’d been taught. That’s exactly what we hope they’ll do after leaving the fire education centre”.
