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Required Detectors On Way To Deaf Woman | way, woman, deaf - Local News - WTVC NewsChannel 9: Chattanooga News, Weather, Radar, Sports, Lottery
Life-saving smoke detectors are coming to a deaf woman who did not awake when flames consumed an apartment right next to hers last week. Fortunately, Fort Oglethorpe police rescued Debra McCord from Battlewood Apartments. The apartment owner, Chip Griffin, tells NewsChannel 9 that flashing strobe light smoke detectors - required for the deaf in certain facilities - are on the way.
The Americans With Disabilities Act requires strobe detectors, which pulse intense flashes of light. Battlewood must comply with the A.D.A. requirement because it receives government money through federal subsidies.
And one of the engineers connected to the strobe detector and another life saving alarm for the hearing impaired lives right here in Chattanooga.
The alarm, which Griffin says is hard-wired into the electricity, didn't wake McCord when fire ripped through this apartment right next door. That's because the detector in her living room and bedroom only emits light, according to Griffin.
Griffin says a crew mistakenly installed the wrong detector. The correct alarms are hard to find in stores. But Griffin found a solution online. His crews will install Gentex strobe detectors in McCord's apartment. Her daughter, Mary Dennis, says those type detectors are a life-saver. She says deaf people are more sensitive to light, even when they are asleep. Dennis said when she was a baby, her baby monitor was connected to a strobe light. When she cried, it would wake her mother. "Their (deaf) senses are totally different because of their loss of hearing."
Vic Humm, a hearing impaired engineer who lives in Chattanooga, explained the how the strobe works even during sleep. "..so that there's enough reflectance off the opposite wall with your back to the light so that you have awareness that there's danger to turn around."
Humm served on the National Fire Protection Association committee that set commercial and residential strobe detector installation and location requirements.
But his work in getting the Lifetone Bedside Fire Alarm on the market proved a bigger contribution. It comes with a speaker that picks up the frequency of a conventional smoke detector. That in turn triggers the alarm to flash "FIRE." A pulsing device is also connected to the alarm and shakes under your mattress once activated. "My involvement was to help Lifetone go through the process of getting it listed by Underwriters Laboratories and help get the requirements in the code," Humm said.
He added the Lifetone alarm is more reliable than the strobe detector, particularly those that are wired into the AC power. Humm says in some cases the battery back-ups on the strobe detectors are not powerful enough to activate them if a fire were to knock out the electricity. In contrast, the Lifetone comes with four "D" batteries. That supplies enough power to last seven days after an outage and push the shaker to work for four minutes.
The Lifetone has been on the market for about two years and cost about $150 dollars. Meanwhile, the Fort Oglethorpe fire department says the cause of this fire remains under investigation.
Life-saving smoke detectors are coming to a deaf woman who did not awake when flames consumed an apartment right next to hers last week. Fortunately, Fort Oglethorpe police rescued Debra McCord from Battlewood Apartments. The apartment owner, Chip Griffin, tells NewsChannel 9 that flashing strobe light smoke detectors - required for the deaf in certain facilities - are on the way.
The Americans With Disabilities Act requires strobe detectors, which pulse intense flashes of light. Battlewood must comply with the A.D.A. requirement because it receives government money through federal subsidies.
And one of the engineers connected to the strobe detector and another life saving alarm for the hearing impaired lives right here in Chattanooga.
The alarm, which Griffin says is hard-wired into the electricity, didn't wake McCord when fire ripped through this apartment right next door. That's because the detector in her living room and bedroom only emits light, according to Griffin.
Griffin says a crew mistakenly installed the wrong detector. The correct alarms are hard to find in stores. But Griffin found a solution online. His crews will install Gentex strobe detectors in McCord's apartment. Her daughter, Mary Dennis, says those type detectors are a life-saver. She says deaf people are more sensitive to light, even when they are asleep. Dennis said when she was a baby, her baby monitor was connected to a strobe light. When she cried, it would wake her mother. "Their (deaf) senses are totally different because of their loss of hearing."
Vic Humm, a hearing impaired engineer who lives in Chattanooga, explained the how the strobe works even during sleep. "..so that there's enough reflectance off the opposite wall with your back to the light so that you have awareness that there's danger to turn around."
Humm served on the National Fire Protection Association committee that set commercial and residential strobe detector installation and location requirements.
But his work in getting the Lifetone Bedside Fire Alarm on the market proved a bigger contribution. It comes with a speaker that picks up the frequency of a conventional smoke detector. That in turn triggers the alarm to flash "FIRE." A pulsing device is also connected to the alarm and shakes under your mattress once activated. "My involvement was to help Lifetone go through the process of getting it listed by Underwriters Laboratories and help get the requirements in the code," Humm said.
He added the Lifetone alarm is more reliable than the strobe detector, particularly those that are wired into the AC power. Humm says in some cases the battery back-ups on the strobe detectors are not powerful enough to activate them if a fire were to knock out the electricity. In contrast, the Lifetone comes with four "D" batteries. That supplies enough power to last seven days after an outage and push the shaker to work for four minutes.
The Lifetone has been on the market for about two years and cost about $150 dollars. Meanwhile, the Fort Oglethorpe fire department says the cause of this fire remains under investigation.