register |  login
› EVERGREEN
Loading Ad
Visit Other Hubs:
ADVERTISEMENT
Loading Tower
RECENT STORIES

Au pairs learn about burns, fire prevention

Contributed by: Einar Jensen on 1/23/2007

Eleven au pairs took time from their busy schedules to attend a home safety seminar presented by Evergreen Fire Rescue's Community Educator Einar Jensen on January 17. Au pairs are live-in child care providers who often come from other countries and utilize their time in the US to study abroad as well as gain experience caring for children.

These au pairs work through Cultural Care Au Pair, a Massachusetts-based company represented locally by Diane Purdy of Evergreen. In addition to her other duties as local coordinator, Purdy arranges seminars for her au pairs to learn about topics such as home safety.

In this most recent seminar they learned about preventing and responding to emergencies. They learned about importance of practicing home fire escape drills after practicing themselves -- crawling through a darkened classroom around furniture to exit doors. They also practiced their Stop, Drop & Roll skills and discussed smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors, vowing to bring those messages back to their host families in Evergreen, Golden, Lakewood and Denver.

Jensen also discussed burn prevention, emphasizing the dangers of scalds, which are the leading cause of burn injuries among children aged four and younger. Scalds are caused by hot gases and liquids contacting skin, such as when a child grabs for a coffee maker's cord dangling from a countertop, and accidentally pulls the maker, pot and its boiling contents onto her body.

Scalds also occur commonly in the bathtub, either when the water is too hot or when a caregiver leaves the child in the tub to answer the telephone and the child turns on the hot water on his own.

They demonstrated their new knowledge by correcting pre-arranged hazards in the firefighters' kitchen at the training center. For example, Jeena Kahnappilly, an au pair from Germany, and Virginia Thomazi of Brazil turned pot handles inward, moved a coffee pot away from the counter's edge, removed an appliance cord that had been dangling toward the floor and removed the toys from the kitchen.

Keeping kids out of the kitchen, they realized, was an effective strategy for injury prevention.

After passing the kitchen test, they followed Jensen to Station 2 for a tour of the apparatus, an opportunity to don Firefighter Shane Morris's protective clothing and a presentation from dispatchers Clint Verseman, Sharifa Lafon and Josh Debell on dialing 911 and posting addresses on their homes.

Other au pairs in the group were Hanna Bremander (Sweden), Julia Eisenberg (Germany), Ondrej Hlavacek (Czech Republic), Vivian Pacheco (Colombia), Natalia Ruiz (Equador), Claudia Moreno (Mexico), Alwina Korell (Germany), Nancy Tapia (Panama) and Roberta Guedes (Brazil). They all plan to return to the training center later this spring to learn CPR and other life-saving skills.

For information on presentations offered by Evergreen Fire Rescue, visit www.evergreenfirerescue.com.


SUBMIT COMMENT

Rate the above story



Current Rating
Based on 3 user ratings.

Talk Back : submit comments to the story

*Note: you need to log-in to add a comment or rating.

Showing 1-3 of 3 comments
Submitted By: Erin Feese
posted on 1/24/2007 @ 4:03:17 PM
Rated Story
Nice. An an au pair blog would be kinda neat...
[Report as objectionable]
Submitted By: Rebecca Zimmerman
posted on 1/23/2007 @ 1:42:53 PM
Rated Story
What a cool class.
[Report as objectionable]
Submitted By: Karen Groves
posted on 1/23/2007 @ 11:21:01 AM
Rated Story
Good story
[Report as objectionable]
Showing 1-3 of 3 comments
CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Einar Jensen

Evergreen , CO

Einar Jensen has posted 161 stories and 4 comments since joining on 9/21/2005. Einar Jensen 's average story rating is 4.99.
SAVE AND SHARE THIS STORY
STORY RSS FEEDS
WANT TO WRITE FOR YOURHUB.COM?
Want to see the stories you write and the photos you shoot featured in the YourHub.com Thursday print section available all over the Front Range and with home subscriptions of the Rocky Mountain News and The Denver Post? All you have to do is register, then post a story or column, start a blog or tell everyone what events are happening in town. We will print the best stories, columns, event listings, photos and blog entries in our print sections.

ADVERTISEMENT
Loading Ad

Loading Ad
ADVERTISEMENT
Loading Ad

This YourHub.com community is produced by The Denver Newspaper Agency
Web Development and Channel Analytics provided by Indigio

terms of use //  privacy policy
the staff //  advertise //  help & faq
buy photos