GOFSEA

Please take the survey (poll) shown in the right hand menu of (this) the GOFSEA web site. The officers want to determine the best way to meet the mission statement and to give you the benefits you want from the organization.

There are two topics:

1. What type of meetings — and how often — would you attend?
2. Where would you like to see the meetings held?

Your input is valuable!
You can leave comments to this post here or use the new feedback voicemail.

Rich has finished another episode of the Home Safe 411 podcast. In this episode he shares information from the Home Safety Council about fall injuries and deaths. Share this with everybody you know!

You can listen to the show at homesafe411.podomatic.com or subscribe via your favorite “podcatcher.” Don’t forget to send in your voice feedback. Call 206-350-5628 or use the record feature at the website.

As always, Rich includes some great new music for your enjoyment. Featured this time is the song “Fall Away” by Velvet Chain.

I hope you like the new GOFSEA page format. This should be much easier to navigate.

I’ll be adding a tutorial section for you in the near future. Those that are already familiar with RSS feeds can subscribe to this site. Then you can have all the updates as soon as they happen!

This site will also allow the membership to add comments. Do you have something you want to share? Do you want to comment on one of the stories you see in this column? You can! Just register (link on the lower right) and you can login to your account so that you can comment. Each story will have it’s own page (click on the story headline). At the bottom of the story is a comment box. You can add your insight or feedback.

Get involved. GOFSEA’s mission is to share! If you have something that the membership might be able to use to improve their programs, share it here. If you have something that you’re proud of, share it here! If you have a comment about a current safety topic, concern or action, say it here!

Let’s return GOFSEA to a sharing, giving, learning organization.

The Hillsboro Firefighters have announced the retirement of Assistant Chief David Lowell. They held a retirement dinner for Chief Lowell on Saturday, October 22, 2005.

Lowell is a member of the NOVA Crisis Team, the Ohio Crisis Response Team, and Scout Master for Boy Scout Troop 171. He recently deployed to Mississippi to assist with hurricane recovery efforts.

Congratulations, Dave!

AMES, Iowa, Oct. 24 [AScribe Newswire] — The 12-year-olds have heard it all before: “Don’t play with matches.” “Stop, drop and roll.” “Get out and stay out.” So how can firefighters get them to tune in to a safety talk?

Use virtual reality to put the children in a computer-generated fire, says Shana Smith, an Iowa State University assistant professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering. It will be realistic. It will be life-size. It will be 3-D. And it will be safe.

A one-year, $54,108 grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is allowing Smith to work with the Ames Fire Department to develop fire safety training that uses the Virtual Reality Applications Center at Iowa State. The training’s goal will be to save lives.

Smith started the project in April. She will start testing the training program with children early next month.

She intends to create computer simulations of fire in an apartment building, a house and a classroom. Those simulations will be projected on Iowa State’s six-sided virtual reality chamber or its four-sided virtual reality chamber. Firefighters will teach children how to react to fires in the different settings. If, for example, a main exit is blocked by fire or smoke, they’ll learn how to find another exit. They’ll also be able to practice their escapes.

“I think this is a very good application for virtual reality,” Smith said. “It’s impossible to offer training so kids know how to respond in a fire event by putting them in a fire. But we can put them in virtual reality.”

Paul Sandoval, the deputy chief of the Ames Fire Department, said Smith’s project will be especially useful in reaching 10- to 14-year-olds who have heard fire safety talks before.

But will a virtual fire scare the kids?

Sandoval said he doesn’t think that will be the case. He said the program will be all about teaching fire safety, not about frightening anyone.