BelgianSheepDog

How does your office alert you to evacuations and "shelter in place"?

Where I work, there is an audiable alarm and a verbal announcemnt. Neither of which I can hear. There are some wimpy strobe lights in the halls and some rooms, it is hard to see the strobe unless you are actually looking at it. They set up a buddy system that does not work at all - often times durning the work day, I am the only person in the area. They have hall monitors who tend to be invisable :-) Yes, I have been left in the building during evacuations - real and drills.

Since my employer, Federal Government, does not seem to care, I took proactive action - I trained a hearing dog to alert me to the alarm. However, there is no way I can train the dog for the building-specific alarm, he is trained to alert me for the general alarm sound. It worked yesterday during a false alarm.

My question is, how are you alerted during emergencies??

Deafness

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Heath

Hi BelgianSheepDog, You can get a free Deaf products catalog in the mail to show your boss or send your boss the link online for powerful fire alarms etc. at:

Harris Communications - products for deaf, deafness, hard of hearing, hearing impaired, and hearing loss.

Ephesians2_8

my deaf great-aunt and her deaf roomate died in a fire in their sleep in Spokane because of no firealarm to alert them. This happened about 5 years ago.

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BelgianSheepDog

I showed them the Harris communication catalog - several times. The problem is I don't stay put in one place. Some of the halls do not have strobes, most of the restrooms lack strobe and none of the meeting rooms have strobes . . . and the existing strobes are so small and wimpy, you can see them only if you are looking at them . . .

Hear Again

This wouldn't apply to you since you are the only person in a given work area, but...when I was completing my internship, I asked co-workers to draw a large "X" on my back (universal "emergency" sign for deafblind) and then guide me out of the building.

For your situation, I wonder if a vibrating pager would work? Someone (such as your boss) could activate it during an evacuation.

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jasin

At the college I goto they have alarms that flash. I am ussaly in the building where the asl instructor has her office too, so if she sees that I did not hear the alarm (I am hoh) she will sign something to me. That's ussaly not the case though because I can see the crowd runing out the door

I'm still a student so obviously I dont know about work enviroments, but maybe they can install alarms that flash? I think they would have to under ada would they not? One deaf girl I know informed me that some firedepartments will install flashing alarms for nothing, so it may not even cost most employers anything.

VamPyroX

How many people does your company employ?

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Canuckian_Chick

My work I usually informed my co worker (emergency volunteer) to focus finding me first foremost in case of emergency also they gave me a pager that whenever the fire alarm goes off it'll vibrates and reads that to leave the building... and you can see people going out all at once... most you will get paged if it's a false alarm it just a practice we have to do once every so often so people don't forget what to do..

Speaking of fire alarms, what about smoke alarms and carbon mioxide (I'm located in canada and having a hard time finding these two devices that can be hooked up to my blackberry not the sound cause my mom is deaf as well or something to be put up in my home) any help in this would be appreciated.. thanks ...

kristakree

I don't work in an office, but at my work, they have a buddy system. Like you, I have been left alone, only during a drill however.
School is something entirely different. In high school, the bell would go and I'd have no idea. I remember a fire started in the science lab and I was in the bathroom. I walked back to my classroom(which was the lab) saw the fire and FREAKED. Obviously, I got out of there, and looked like an idiot when I finally came out. My principal didn't even come over to me to make sure I was okay, the firemen did but not her. Next morning, my teacher of the deaf, my cousin(who was a paramedic there), my parents and I had a very long meeting with her about how stupid her actions were. They put lights in the bathrooms now.
The best place in my high school if you wanted to know if there was a fire was the woodshop. The strobe was pretty strong and the machines would cut off so you knew.
My college is a different story. We had a drill last week, I noticed something flashing from my left, looked over and saw the strobe flashing. Crappy thing but it got my attention.

As for Canuckian_Chick, have you talked to CHS? I'm not sure what they have avaible as of now though.

-Krista

Presbyter

I have a fire alarm right above my head. I doesn't work. Too expensive to fix the wiring problems. I'm on my own in a billion dollar company when it comes to a fire.

Presbyter