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Dr. Max Gomez reportingEvery parents worst fear: The fire alarm goes off in the middle of the night.
What may wake up the parents very likely will not wake up sound sleeping children.
We talked with experts and demonstrate methods for getting kids up and alert in the event of an emergency.
Anyone who's ever had a child, or even been around a snoozing kid, knows how soundly they sleep. Sometimes it seems more like a coma than sleep. As Julie and Dennis Barbaro found out one night when their kids Tyler and Grace were sleeping and the smoke alarm went off right outside their bedroom.
Julie Barbaro/ Mother: "The alarm is blaring the police department and the fire department are in his bedroom and he didn't even move... it's deafening."
Seems that kids tend to spend much more of their sleeping hours in deep or delta sleep stages than do adults.
Dr. Roberto Nachajom/ St. Joseph's Medical Center: "If the kid is in the stage 3 and 4 sleep which predominates in the first 3rd of the night and it would be difficult to wake up the child with any sort of noise."
Here's another example: Not even an eyelid flutter when 9-year-old Jack Howells old fashioned alarm clock goes off inches from his head.
But sleeping that soundly can put a child's life at risk if they don't wake up to a smoke or carbon monoxide alarm.
Although it may not be a direct result, national fire statistics show that preschoolers have a fire death rate nearly double the national average.
The league for the hard of hearing has a couple of different technologies that they suggest to people who are hearing impaired, to help rouse them from their sleep during a fire. Now this may also be applicable to children or other hard to rouse people.
The first is a visual stimulus that has a strobe light. The other is a physical stimulus, a vibrating stimulus. You put it under a mattress, and then when the smoke alarm goes off the vibration wakes you from your sleep."
Julie Vallese/ CPSC: "What is good for an adult may not be good for a child and the agency is really looking into whether or not smoke alarms can be more effective for a broader percent of the population."
