Smoke alarms

 
Smoke and CO Alarms
            As a personal injury firm that helps Maine people who have been injured in accidents, Lowry & Associates has had occasion to represent a number of victims of residential fires.  Unfortunately some of these cases have involved the death of a resident and others have involved serious injury.
            In almost every case the injury or death of the victim would have been avoided if the residence had working smoke alarms.
            The Consumer Product Safety Commission recommends that the batteries in all smoke and carbon dioxide alarms should be changed once a year, and suggests that a good time to do it is when changing the clocks from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time.  This occurred this year on November 6^th, so I hope that everyone took this reminder to make sure that all of the alarms are supplied with fresh batteries.
            According to the CPSC about two-thirds of fire deaths occur in homes with either no smoke alarms or smoke alarms that do not work.  For the period 2006 through 2008 there were 386,000 residential fires nationwide that resulted in nearly 2400 deaths, more than 12,500 injuries and $6.92 billion in property damage per year.
            Be safe.  The small amount of investment and time is very small compared to the degree of protection you can provide for yourself and your family.