Safety warnings for Marana residents | News

With another heat warning, it’s dangerous out there and not just from the temperature.  

That one risk factor is important, of course, but in Marana, there are a few common emergency situations facing residents and your reliable fire department and according to one expert, most are preventable.

“The majority of our calls are, of course, emergency medical calls and the majority of those calls are related to fall injuries,” Northwest Fire District Chief Norman “Brad” Bradley III said. “In our view, those fall injuries in most cases are preventable.”

It’s time to take a look around and see what could cause emergency mishaps. Bradley wants everyone to review their home for possible problems. He talked about the most common he sees.

That fall situation is not unique to the Northwest Fire District. Bradley said that’s across southern Arizona and the nation, but he is working on a solution.

Along with several other Pima County agencies, “our goal is for the Fall Injury Prevention month, which is September. We want to develop a resource guide that points people who are at risk of falls to the right resources.” Bradley said they are developing programs and workshops to be presented at community centers, care facilities, really anywhere people gather. 

“We want to provide some education around fall prevention and make it part of discharge paperwork and procedures when people go to the hospital so that they don’t continue that fall risk,” he said. “We’re trying to prevent the secondary fall as well.”

Fall injuries can happen to anyone at any age, but the risks change depending on age. For seniors it’s the slip/fall hazard such as tripping on a rug or pet. In some cases it’s not recognizing the need for extra help such as a grab bar in the shower stall.

More information about the program is coming in September.

Fire

The next most common situation that the NWFD faces is residential fires. There are two types Bradley said.

“The external residential fire, usually brought on by, maybe, an out-of-control barbecue or someone who is burning weeds or grass in their yard and that small brush fire or trash fire gets away and ultimately gets into the house,” he said.

Then there’s this:

“We know we have cooking related fires, those happen, but the one that stood out a little bit was the electrical fires,” he added. “That could be anything from faulty wiring, overcharging lithium ion batteries.”

That battery issue is important because it can happen so easily and we all have to charge lithium batteries everyday. Many of us charge our phones, tables and laptops at night. 

“Any kind of lithium ion battery is at risk; when it’s overcharged, it can overheat and catch fire,” Bradley said. “Some of the things that we notice, that we see across the nation is people will charge their cell phones overnight. They’ll plug it in and maybe leave it on a soft surface such as their bed or on a cloth material or on a couch, something like that. When that battery heats up, it can cause a fire and that fire ultimately will spread from the object of origin to the room of origin and sometimes across the entire house.”

As if that weren’t enough, here’s the issue that keeps Bradley up at night.

“Really what bothers me is the rate of civilian injuries associated with residential fires,” he said. “We’ve got a number that is higher than we want. What we want is zero but this last year we had 12 or 13 injuries related to fires and those are absolutely preventable.”

CPR

One thing Marana does well is being prepared as bystanders to jump in to help when someone is having a cardiac episode.  

“What we’re working on is trying to get bystander CPR at higher levels,” Bradley said. “Our community already does fantastic at that. I think we were up above 60% but we want to push it to 70%. We want to keep that trend going because the chances of survival by receiving bystander CPR nearly doubles without it.”

He said everyone should take a CPR class and be able to perform that duty if called upon.

“That cardiac arrest piece is pretty important to us,” he added. “We’re seeing really good survival rates with it. … If it were up to us, we would have everyone know CPR.”

NWFD offers classes in CPR and if you go to the website, you can request it. 

Staying safe

Forethought really does help prevent injuries.

“Community risk reduction is about preventing emergencies before they happen,” Bradley said. “Instead of only responding to incidents we look at the most common risks in the community like falls or residential fires and we want to take proactive steps to reduce them. For residents that means safer homes, fewer injuries and oftentimes lower costs in the long run.

The NWFD is working hard to keep the community safe but ultimately they are relying on Marana’s residents to keep an eye out for possible problems before they develop into problems.

“We need the community’s help to do that,” he added. “We need them to recognize that these risks are present and that they have the ability to make that change.”