Saturday 13 June 2009

Query For You Smokers Out There...

This is a sad, and very odd, story:
A pensioner who died after a blaze in her flat broke fire alarms with a broom so she could smoke indoors.

Lillian Marchant, 78, a heavy smoker, suffered severe burns after she fell asleep and a cigarette set fire to her chair. She later died in hospital.

An inquest heard that smoke detectors were fitted in the flat in Tillstone Street, Brighton, but she had knocked them off with a broom.
Surely cigarette smoke isn't enough to set off a normal smoke detector, is it? Mine go off if I burn toast, or grill steak a little too enthusiastically, but guests smoking have never set them off...
Her neighbours and carers had told her not to smoke but she continued despite their warnings.
As she was perfectly entitled to do...
Richard Fowler, an East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service investigator, told the Brighton hearing: “There would have been time to rescue her before she was seriously injured if we had received an early call because smoke detectors were present.

“We can fit detectors free of charge but we need either to be invited into someone's home or receive a referral to be able to do so.

There are very few places that people can smoke these days but they can do so in their own homes.

“If they do not want us to fit an alarm there is nothing we can do because we do not have the authority.”
So, any ideas if these are new super-dooper sensitive smoke alarms we are talking about here? And if so, why are they pushing them on people who smoke, when they know they will set them off?

Curiouser and curiouser...

8 comments:

Angry Exile said...

Used to smoke and had an over sensitive smoke detector. Didn't go off every time I sparked up, and not as often as grilling some bacon set the damn thing beeping. But whether the reason for most of the false alarms was B&H or Danepak is neither here nor there, there were far too many of them so the battery was removed and never replaced.

Anonymous said...

''...because we do not have the authority.”

Yet

Pavlov's Cat said...

I see from the story they were fitted by the LA as part of her 'Care Package'

So I guess they were similar to the ones in the care home my Grandad was in. The home was for people with senile dementia and whilst they did have a 'smoking room'. There were detectors in each room that were that sensitive, purely for safety reasons, in case one of the residents did fall asleep with a fag on. ( sorry, they were 'customers' or was it clients?)

Pavlov's Cat said...

BTW, they only had one resident who smoked. A 96 year lady who smoked 30 a day.
One of the carers told me that when she shuffled off, they were going to close the Smoking Room under local authority guidelines and any new frail pensioners with dementia that smoked would be made to go outside.

(The Staff were not allowed to use the smoking room, they had to go out by the bins)

Rob said...

"If they do not want us to fit an alarm there is nothing we can do because we do not have the authority"

Am I being paranoid here, or is there a smidgeon of regret in this statement?

NickM said...

I am, amazingly, the warden of a religious building (I am being deliberately coy here) and I know moke detectors - they are a staturory obligation - and having ones set off by fag smoke is a really bad idea. Too many false positives and you are in schtuck.

Because the point is you get into the habit if it goes off for minor reasons of ignoring it's real function. If for example the yoga group who rent this place get into the habit of thinking, "the alarm's gone off because Nick has burnt his gammon, again" then they won't take it seriously when there is a genuine emergency.

That is why we (I) have a fire-policy, drills and escape plans. Guess what they are? The able-bodied mainly get out first, some designated and knowing what they are up to able-bodied stay behind to evacuate the disabled but the improtant thing is to keep the stairs clear and that is not achieved by the well-meaning but incompetent fecking about with someone's wheel chair.

I take my job very seriosuly. Well, I take the important aspects of it seriously such as fire safety. The "Green Audit"* which was about as much fun as being taken roughly from behind by GROLIES with an un-lubed strap-on I ignore. I have other jobs ya see.

*It's 400 years old and got 18" stone walls so when she tutted about the lack of cavity wall insulation I almost lamped her.

JuliaM said...

"One of the carers told me that when she shuffled off, they were going to close the Smoking Room under local authority guidelines and any new frail pensioners with dementia that smoked would be made to go outside. "

I could see that bit coming a mile off...!

"Am I being paranoid here, or is there a smidgeon of regret in this statement?"

No. And yes.

"I know moke detectors - they are a staturory obligation - and having ones set off by fag smoke is a really bad idea. Too many false positives and you are in schtuck."

Yes, of course. No doubt the fire brigade would soon get fed up!

I'm afraid the tone of the report, and the quotes from those the paper interviewed, was very much along the lines of: "The old nuisance! She should just stop smoking!"

She was 78. And it was probably her only pleasure in life. Surely someone could have found an alternate way of keeping her safe from real firesm but allowing her the only pleasure she had?

JuliaM said...

"The "Green Audit"* which was about as much fun as being taken roughly from behind by GROLIES with an un-lubed strap-on I ignore. I have other jobs ya see.

*It's 400 years old and got 18" stone walls so when she tutted about the lack of cavity wall insulation I almost lamped her."


'Green Audit'.. *rolls eyes*