TEXAS FIRE SAFETY EDUCATOR WINS HOME SAFETY COUNCIL’S 2006 SAFETY EDUCATION HERO AWARD

Plano, TX Educator’s Fire Safety Literacy Instruction and Fire Extinguisher Training Prevented Serious Injuries in Apartment Fire

The 2006 SEHA winner, Peggy Harrell is honored by her Senator, the Honorable Kay Bailey Hutchison, as HSC’s Chief Operating Officer Patricia Adkins look on.

The Home Safety Council (HSC) applauds the life-saving efforts of Peggy Harrell, Fire Safety Education Coordinator with the Plano (TX) Fire Department. On Thursday, April 6, Harrell received the 2006 Safety Education Hero Award during the Congressional Fire Services Institute’s (CFSI) National Fire and Emergency Services Banquet in Washington, D.C.

The Safety Education Hero Award is presented by HSC in partnership with CFSI. The honor recognizes the outstanding efforts of those individuals who work diligently at the local level, teaching the public how to help prevent and respond to home fires and how to reduce the risk of fire, burn and other preventable home injuries. Harrell received a $1,000 honorarium and commemorative medal from the Home Safety Council as well as a selection of home safety educational materials to utilize in Plano.

Harrell is credited with providing the fire safety instruction that helped a student prevent serious injury when an apartment fire broke out. Harrell had coordinated a household fire extinguisher training event to supplement the basic fire safety instruction being provided to adult students in the Plano Even Start family literacy program. Following classroom lessons and a hands-on practice session, Harrell arranged for participants to receive Kidde fire extinguishers courtesy of her local Lowe’s store. A few months later, one of the Even Start students used her extinguisher to put out a fire in her apartment building, helping to save a neighbor from serious injury.

“Peggy is the kind of educator who maximizes teaching opportunities in order to provide her community with the most comprehensive safety outreach possible,” said Meri-K Appy, president of the Home Safety Council. “She knows how to marshal resources and effectively partner with others to great benefit. It is this kind of commitment and skill that make Peggy’s work so commendable, and it’s why we are so happy to honor her with the 2006 Safety Education Hero Award.”

Pictured above from left to right: HSC President Meri-K Appy, Peggy Harrell, the 2006 Safety Education Hero Award recipient and HSC’s Chief Operating Officer, Patricia Adkins.

Fire Safety Program Summary

In 2004, the Plano Fire Department and Plano Even Start Family Literacy Program were among seven sites selected by the Home Safety Council to pilot-test the Home Safety Literacy Project’s delivery of fire safety information to adults learning to read English. The Project (www.homesafetyliteracy.org) provides highly illustrated home safety educational materials designed to be accessible to the estimated 93 million adults in the U.S. who struggle with English literacy. Intended to be delivered through local fire service/literacy provider teams, the Home Safety Literacy Project is sponsored by HSC in partnership with ProLiteracy Worldwide and Oklahoma State University’s Fire Protection Publications. Harrell took the lead in coordinating the Project pilot test within the Plano Fire Department.

As part of the pilot test, Harrell co-taught weekly home fire safety lessons to parents and other caregivers in the Even Start program and made home visits in order to install smoke alarms and discuss the family’s emergency escape plan. In response to their interest in receiving additional home fire safety education, Harrell partnered with the local Lowe’s store to coordinate a supplement to the pilot test. The Plano “Lowe’s Heroes Program” donated Kidde household fire extinguishers for an extinguisher training for adult students and provided additional smoke alarms and other safety tools for the students’ homes. Harrell installed extinguishers in the homes of those adults who completed the hands-on extinguisher training.

Peggy Harrell’s Success Story

The classroom lessons and hands-on training Plano Even Start student Maria Diaz received as part of the Plano Home Safety Literacy Project pilot test paid off in spring 2005. Diaz was alerted to a fire when she heard the sound of the smoke alarm in the apartment next door. Her neighbor, who was recovering from surgery, was unsure what to do when the fire broke out and was unable to move quickly to escape. Following the instruction she had received from Harrell’s extinguisher training program, Diaz grabbed her fire extinguisher and successfully put out her neighbor’s apartment fire.

Diaz’ quick action is credited with stopping a potentially disastrous fire and preventing serious injury that may have occurred to her neighbor and other residents in the building at the time.

“I am so grateful to Even Start and to the Plano Fire Department for teaching me how to stay safe and use the fire extinguisher,” said Maria Diaz. “I would not have known what to do if I had not learned in class. They made me practice with a real extinguisher to put the fire out at class. Then the Lowe’s people gave me an extinguisher free.”