Al's Morning Meeting

"Patrick Bradford noted that as precious minutes ticked by, his son had not budged.

"With Lt. Ingram pointing out that fires can spread to an inferno in four minutes or less, parents were unnerved by their children's inability to wake up to the alarm. In every case, smoke detectors rang in the house for at least six minutes, with the children never waking up. Parents then attempted to wake their children by other means.

"With mom shouting, Emily Carlson woke, but was still unaware of the potential danger. Surprisingly, even shouting didn't wake two other children in our (KXAS) tests.

"'I assumed the kids would wake up in two to three minutes. If nothing else, because it's such an irritating sound. I never dreamed it would take the kids so long to respond to that,' Ingram said.

"'It really has made me more aware of what I need to know as a parent and not assume they're going to wake up when the fire alarm goes off,' parent Fernando Benavides said.

"The children said they never heard the alarm and that they had never practiced with the alarm going off. Bradford said he would now hold drills in his home using the alarms so that the children can associate the sound with an emergency situation.

"So, that is just what the families did for the next two weeks, hoping it would make a difference.

"But still, the children slept. Dr. John Herman is a pediatric sleep expert with UT Southwestern Medical Center and Children's Medical Center of Dallas. Herman says that it's normal for 9-year-olds to sleep through virtually anything, 'and to not expect the alarms to wake your children, that it is the parent's responsibility to ensure their children's safety in such an emergency.'

"'Children sleep very deeply. They sleep through all sorts of alarms, which is a blessing. But in this particular instance, could be a tragedy,' Herman said.

"Texas State Fire Marshal G. Mike Davis said, 'I don't know that I have ever considered it, the possibility of children not waking up. Unfortunately, what this tape shows me, children aren't conditioned to react and respond the way we want them to do when a smoke detector goes off.'"

In response to KXAS' findings, Davis wrote a letter to UL, Underwriters Laboratories. UL is the agency that sets the standards and tests for smoke detectors, as well as submitting approval for the devices.

UL's Response

John Dregenberg is the Manager of Consumer Affairs for UL. Dregenberg states that "the information on children's response to smoke alarms is relatively new information and will be part of our next standards development meeting on smoke alarms."

Dregenberg added that the meeting will come early next year and improvements are possible as a result of the new information provided by NBC 5. "It's information we need to set the safety standard for the United States," Dregenberg said.

Court To Hear Library Internet Porn Filter Case

The U.S. Supreme Court said this week that it will decide if the government can restrict Internet surfing at public libraries, the third case pitting free speech concerns against efforts to shield children from online pornography to reach the justices.

Law.com reports, "The Court will resolve whether federal funding can be stripped from libraries that don't install filters on computers to block sexually explicit Web sites.

"The decision would affect more than 14 million people a year who use public library computers to do research, send and receive e-mail, and, in some cases, log onto adult sites."
 
Check your local libraries, what is their policy and practice? How easy is it to log on to adult sites and how often does it happen?

"A three-judge federal panel in Pennsylvania ruled last spring that the Children's Internet Protection Act violates the Constitution's First Amendment because the filtering programs also block sites on politics, health, science and other nonpornographic topics.

"The judges recommended less restrictive ways to control Internet use, such as requiring parental consent before minors are allowed to log in on an unfiltered computer or having a parent monitor a child's Web use.

"'The filtering turns the Internet into something fit for a 5-year-old, and not even that. It blocks enormous amounts of protected speech,' said Charles Sims, a First Amendment lawyer in New York."

Wired.com reported, "Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the Washington, D.C. office of the American Library Association, said she believed the Supreme Court would be swayed by damning evidence presented in Philadelphia that demonstrated the filters were buggy and unreliable.

"'The filtering companies were pretty much discredited by this case because they're not the best way to protect children,' she said.

"The library association believes that decisions on how to protect children from unsavory material online is best left in the hands of individual libraries, as is currently the case. For example, some libraries have opted for recessed or hooded monitors that can only be viewed by the patron surfing the Net. Others have opted public humiliation as a tactic -- if a patron ogles porn in a facility that prohibits such things, the librarian taps the person on the shoulder and orders him (or her) to leave the terminal or library.

"But Jonathon Bertman, the president of Afraidtoask.com, a health site which provides information on everything from bowel movements to masturbation, was irritated at the appeal. His site is routinely blocked by filtering software because it contains graphic images and text, but is not pornographic. Bertman, a family physician who teaches family medicine at Brown University, said 25 percent of his visitors are under 18; an age group often embarrassed to ask their elders about intimate body functions

"'I'm disappointed the government is going to waste our time and taxpayer money on a law that clearly tramples on my rights of free speech,' he said."

Too Fat for Air Ambulance

My Poynter partner Larry Larsen found a story in The Des Moines Register that I have never heard before. It is the story of a man who was too fat to be transported by air ambulance.

"He was rushed to Pella Regional Health Center. Emergency crews also dispatched Iowa Methodist Medical Center's Life Flight helicopter from Des Moines in an attempt to get Sparks, 46, to a heart specialist as quickly as possible.

"That's when Sparks, who weighed 365 pounds, learned what only a handful of people already knew: Helicopters have limits.

"A few patients each year find out that helicopter ambulances are unable to help them because they are too large or weigh too much. The situation prompted officials at Iowa Methodist to lease a more advanced aircraft that has been in service for about a month.

"Sparks was loaded into a standard ambulance for the 40-mile trip to Des Moines. The round trip would have taken a helicopter -- at a top speed of about 140 mph -- less than an hour, including takeoff, landing and loading the patient, said Kevin Takacs of Med-Force, a service that flies for hospitals in eastern Iowa and western Illinois.

"This in the same week that a Mesa, Az., ambulance company said now has an ambulance designed to accommodate people who weigh more than 450 pounds.

"The vehicle has been requested 10 times since Southwest Ambulance began using it two weeks ago, said spokeswoman Anne Bielecki.

"The ambulance is fitted with $12,000 worth of custom features, including a loading ramp; a wider, enforced floor; air shock lifts; heavy-duty suspension and customized stretchers."

You will remember previous Al's Morning Meeting stories about a coroner's office that reported it had to buy special equipment because of the number of people who were dying weighing more than 500 pounds, which is a lot more than their current stretchers can handle.

And this story about how hospitals now have to install jumbo-sized surgery tables in hospitals. TGH (Tampa General Hospital) recently hired a six-man "lift team" to help transport and turn large patients safely. Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg is using bigger operating room tables and floor lifts. Community Hospital in New Port Richey has armless chairs in some waiting rooms so obese patients can sit more comfortably.

"''It's unfair for the patients not to have a bath just because we don't have a wide enough shower chair for them,' Shea said.

"'Everything you do to a regular patient, you have to accommodate to 400, 500, 600 pounds,' said Dr. Eneida O. Roldan, a Miami clinician who focuses on the needs of obese patients. 'Obviously, the epidemic is here.'"