Paramedic begins S.A.F.E. program at Edgartown School

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Students will have the opportunity to identify home fire hazards in a specially equipped fire safety trailer. – Photo courtesy of Hadley Antik

Edgartown firefighter and paramedic Hadley Antik applied for and received a state Student Awareness for Fire Education (S.A.F.E.) grant, which she has used to implement a program in the Edgartown School. As a result, every Friday morning Edgartown fourth graders learn pivotal fire safety and prevention behaviors.

The program started in October in recognition of fire safety month. There will be four sessions all together. Students learn everything from what creates fire to drawing their own house and creating an exit plan in every room. Friday’s lesson was about home hazards — what’s dangerous and how to identify it.

“The final thing they’re going to learn, and it’s something I’m really pushing in K-4 right now, is for every student to know an adult’s phone number, as well as his or her own address,” Ms. Antik said.

Many households have switched from landlines to cellular phones at home. A call by cell phone to 911 to report a fire is routed to a State Police dispatcher off-Island, and is rerouted to the Island communications center. Calls that go through the Island communications center generate a house location. That is not the case with cell phones.

“It doesn’t come up with an address, so for us to come up with that location we actually have to triangulate, and that can take up to an hour if not more,” she said. For that reason, in the case of a home fire, it’s a huge risk if children do not know their address.

At the end of October, there will be what Ms. Antik calls the program “finale.” For their last class, students will have the opportunity to identify home fire hazards in a specially equipped fire safety trailer, after which the students will learn how to crawl through a simulated fire scenario and out a window from the trailer.

Overall, Ms. Antik said the students have really taken to the program. She said she wants it to be fun and interactive, but also educational.

“They all have been very, very excited,” she said. “I’ve had many students come up to me in the hallway and say ‘I did it, I did it.’ Or they’ll stop me and say, ‘When are you coming back?’”

According to the Department of Fire Services, two benefits of the program are, “Training children reduces anxiety so they are able to react to stressful situations; people fall back on what they have practiced,” and, “Firefighters become role models for children.” In addition, the average number of fire deaths of children under age 18 has fallen by 72 percent since S.A.F.E. began in the fall of 1995, according to the department.

And the S.A.F.E. program is only one of a number of partnerships between the Edgartown School and EMS/fire department. When the EMS responsibilities start slowing down in the fall, Ms. Antik said, some of the paramedics spend a few hours each week helping out in the school.

“We’re over in the school anywhere from one to three days a week for a few hours, either helping the nurse or doing various things,” she said. “One of our members likes to go and hang out in the physical education department with the kids.”

Ms. Antik works as a liaison between the school and the fire department, and teaches fire prevention to kindergarten through fourth grade students every year. In the kindergarten and first grade, for example, she teaches a “no fear of a firefighter in gear” program.

“When we’re dressed fully, with the air tank and everything, we do sound a little bit like Darth Vader, and it can be very scary,” she said. “They get to see an individual go from their uniform to putting on their gear piece by piece, so in the event that a kid gets stuck in their bedroom, or gets stuck in a fire, they know that strange noise they heard on that day in health class is actually a noise that they need to go toward and not hide away from.”

Ms. Antik would like to see the S.A.F.E. program expanded across the Island. She pointed out that right now there are 45 fourth graders in the Edgartown S.A.F.E. program, and if it was expanded to include all Island fourth graders, it could reach as many as 300 students a year.

It requires a town representative applying for and writing a grant annually. Each town receives money from the state fire marshal’s office based on population.

“My aim is to bring awareness to how important fire safety is,” she said. “It’s a great program, and I would love to see it in the future years really expand to other towns and other programs.”