Here’s a story that might keep you awake at night:
Kids can easily snooze right through smoke alarms, a Dallas TV station found.
Reporters for KXAS, an NBC affiliate, staged an experiment with the help of firefighters and parents. In four homes with kids ages 6 to 9, they set off smoke alarms as the kids slept.
“In all of the cases, the alarms went off for six minutes, and none of the children woke up,” reporter Deborah Ferguson said. “That sound could not awaken them.”
The station restaged the test days later, and, again, all the children slept through the alarms.
“Children sleep very deeply; they sleep through all sorts of alarms, which is a blessing in a way,” pediatrician John Herman told NBC. “But in this particular instance, it could be a tragedy.”
Underwriters Laboratories, the agency that sets smoke-detector standards, said that this was something of a wake-up call and that it would consider revising its standards.
