Speaking of 911......

leli

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........

During my 7 years of teaching swimming I was constantly surprised at the number of kids who don't know what to do in an emergency. Even the ones that knew the number didn't know what to do with it. So, just a friendly reminder to teach your kids what they need to tell the operator. This will help them in an emergency, because if they've done practice runs with you, they'll be more likely to remain calm in a real emergency....

5 things:

1. name
2. Address (you'd be surprised how many kids didn't know this without a parent prompting!)
3. What the emergency is......also, you can play "is this an emergency??" with little kids (aka GOOFY, get-them-giggling/engaged impressions of injuries "ouch ouch I fell of the jungle gym and broke my arm, oh no!!!! can mommy drive me to the hospital or should you call an ambulance?" "AHHHH there's a fire in the FIREPLACE!!!!! Should we call 911?" etc so they can recognize when 911 is necessary....)

for older kids:
4. what do you need (ambulance, fire, police)
5. Always get an ETA (estimated time of arrival) so you know how long you'll be on your own....

I'm sure you all have already taught your kids the basics, but it never hurts to repeat the lessons, or check how confident they are in the knowledge.

You never know what can happen. Best to be prepared (I sound like a boyscout lol)
 

bumpy

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Originally Posted by ugaimes

Very good thing to make note of!
Can we teach that to our furry children too?
I know there are specially trained dogs that can dial 911. They are trained to take not of several possible scenarios and would then rush to dial 911. Obviously the dog cannot speak but one can trace the phone call. Have yet to hear of specially trained cats.
 

crazy4cats28

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Thanks for posting this. I'm sure this will help many people with kids.

I can't believe I'm saying this but I know how in an emergency it's easy to forget what to do when an emergency happens. When I was about 12 my Dad's truck caught on fire right in front of our house and my Mom yelled for me to call the fire department and stupid me I asked "What's the number?" I didn't even think about 911 at first but then thought you dummy call 911. The fire wasn't that big but we just got home from a camping trip and still had the trailer attached to the truck as well as several propane tanks in the bed of the truck so it could of been a really bad situation. I'm just happy it happened there instead of on the 3hr drive home. By the time the fire department got there (less than 2 minutes because we lived 1/4 mile fromthe station) my Dad had the fire out and everything was fine except there was now a 26ft trailer stuck in the middle of the road in front of our house.

I don't think I will ever live that down. My family still gives me a bad time about that.
 
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