Study finds choking on food still common among kids (plus tips on how to help a choking child or adult)

Here’s an interesting Monday musing…

Did you know about 34 children are treated in U.S. emergency rooms every day for choking on food, according to a new report?!

According to U.S. News, Dr. Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, looked at a national database, comparing the numbers of choking injuries year by year.

In 2001, about 10,400 U.S. children were treated in emergency departments for non-fatal choking on food. From 2001 through 2009, the annual estimate of non-fatal injuries was about 12,400 children, aged 14 and under, Smith found.

The average age of the children treated was 4.5 years old, and the age group of children from newborns to 4 years old accounted for about 62 percent of the episodes.

The top 5 foods involved in choking incidents were candy, meat, bone, fruits and vegetables. Hot dogs made the list but they were #11 according to MD Mama. Read more about the new study online and in the August print issue of Pediatrics.

So … would YOU know what to do if you see a child or adult choking..?

Things to watch for…

• Trouble breathing
• Coughing or choking for several minutes
• Gripping the throat with one or both hands
• High-pitched wheezing
• Bluish color of skin, lips, fingertips/nails, and earlobes

NOTE: There are TWO separate “What to do…” parts here… one for ADULTS & CHILDREN and one for INFANTS!

What to do… for ADULTS & CHILDREN (Children over age 1)

• Tell victim to try and cough it out. Ask “are you choking?” If victim nods yes, tell him/her you are going to help. (Be prepared to do the Heimlich maneuver.)
•  Stand behind victim, wrap your arms around him/her and place your fist (thumb side in) just above victim’s belly button well below the breastbone.
• Grab the fist with your other hand and give quick, upward thrusts into their abdomen.
•  Continue giving thrusts until the object is coughed out and victim can breathe, cough or talk or until he/she stops responding or passes out.

If ADULT or CHILD stops responding or passes out:

Yell for help, check breathing, and position victim on a flat surface so you can begin CPR (30 compressions and 2 breaths) – or do Hands-only CPR – to help force object out.

What to do… for INFANTS (Newborn to age 1)

• If infant stops breathing, have someone call an ambulance.
• Turn infant face down on your forearm and support its head with that hand — hold at angle so it’s head is lower than chest. (May want to brace arm holding infant against your thigh.)
• Give 5 back blows between infants’ shoulder blades with the heel of your other hand.
• If no object comes out, turn infant over so it is facing up on your forearm (still at an angle so head lower than chest) — use your first two fingers to find the center of the breastbone on infant’s chest.
• Give 5 thrusts to infant’s chest using only 2 fingers! (Each thrust should be 1½ inches [3.81 cm] deep!)
• Repeat steps until infant can breath, cough, or cry or until he/she stops responding or passes out.

If INFANT stops responding or passes out: 

Place infant on a firm, flat surface above ground (like on a table or counter) so you can begin Infant CPR.

Additional Resources:

Learn more about CPR from the American Heart Association or find a CPR class near you … or contact your local Red Cross about their First Aid and CPR courses.

And visit the Child Injury Prevention Alliance for some choking prevention tips.

Stay safe out there, j & B

Dancing across the water (surreal waterspouts)

Last week we saw a photo of an incredible waterspout near Tampa Bay Florida (included below) and thought this would be a great topic for today’s Friday Fotos post.

Waterspouts are spinning columns of rising moist air that typically form over warm water.  The Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida is arguably the most active area in the world for waterspouts, with hundreds forming each year. Some people speculate that waterspouts are responsible for some of the losses recorded in the Bermuda Triangle per NASA.

According to NOAA Ocean Facts waterspouts fall into two categories…

Tornadic waterspouts are tornadoes that form over water, or move from land to water. They have the same characteristics as a land tornado, are associated with severe thunderstorms, and are often accompanied by high winds and seas, large hail, and frequent dangerous lightning.

Fair weather waterspouts usually form along the dark flat base of a line of developing cumulus clouds. This type of waterspout is generally not associated with thunderstorms. While tornadic waterspouts develop downward in a thunderstorm, a fair weather waterspout develops on the surface of the water and works its way upward. By the time the funnel is visible, a fair weather waterspout is near maturity.

If a waterspout moves onshore in the U.S., the National Weather Service issues a tornado warning, as some of them can cause significant damage and injuries to people. Typically, fair weather waterspouts dissipate rapidly when they make landfall, and rarely go far inland.

But enough talking already … here is a tiny sampling of some beautiful twisted water dancing formations…

4 (of 10 sighted) waterspouts near the coast of Albania 1999; Credit & Copyright: Roberto Giudici via CSU

Grand Isle, Louisiana June 2013; Credit: Adam Frey via WWLTV

Waterspouts in the Bahamas Islands Credit: NOAA’s NWS Collection

Gorgeous waterspout near Tampa Bay Florida July 2013; Image Credit & Copyright: Joey Mole via NASA

Below video shows a series of powerful waterspouts near New South Wales coast. Several powerful columns of swirling air could be seen blasting along the water’s surface near the coastline. Australia’s Channel 7 claimed the spouts reached heights of up to 600 metres (nearly two thousand feet), but dissipated as they neared land.

Find more waterspout photos and info in NOAA’s Photo Library or on Islandnet.com

Stay safe & have a great weekend everyone! 🙂 j & B

Open for Business and OFB-EZ (Free business continuity tools from IBHS)

Sharing IBHS’s cool products spotlighted in our July 2013 enews…

America has over 23 million small businesses employing about half of the private labor force. The last thing owners want to think about during these tough economic times (or any time for that matter) is a natural or man-made disaster impacting their bottom line.

However, research shows at least 25 percent (and potentially as high as 40 percent) of small businesses do not reopen after a major disaster. Those that do, often struggle to stay in business.

By planning in advance, the odds of a company surviving and recovering from a disaster increase dramatically. Many small and mid-sized businesses and groups think that developing a continuity plan can be complicated and costly. Most don’t invest the energy and money into preparing for the unexpected.

But some free business continuity tools can help change that…

Free solutions from IBHS

The Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) has developed a streamlined business continuity program for small businesses that may not have the time or resources to create an extensive plan to recover from business interruptions.

Open for Business (OFB) is the Institute’s comprehensive business continuity planning program, and the new OFB-EZ tool is a streamlined kit intended for the use by the very small business owner.

Knowing what risks they face, how to contact key suppliers, vendors and employees without access to electronic records, how to access data, and where to go for help will give small businesses a jump start on recovery if the worst happens.

“Spending a few minutes to plan now will save time and money later,” said Gail Moraton, IBHS Business Resiliency Manager. “OFB-EZ takes into account just how busy small business owners are and focuses on the most important things they must do to be better prepared.”

How can these tools be available at no cost?

IBHS is an independent, nonprofit, scientific research and communications organization supported by the property insurance industry. The organization works to reduce the social and economic effects of natural disasters and other risks on residential and commercial property by conducting building science research and advocating improved construction, maintenance and preparedness practices.

Howard Pierpont, Board Chair of DERA (The International Association for Disaster Preparedness and Response), has been involved in the review and comments portion of various OFB tool developments since 2005. Pierpont’s 40 years of Business Development, Business Management and Business Continuity experience, combined with his passion to help educate the public about preparedness, are a testament to the types of volunteer experts IBHS has involved with their OFB platform.

The key now, Pierpont explains, is to get the word out to the small and mid-sized businesses, community associations and others about these free tools so they can be better prepared.

OFB-EZ: For the small business owner in the know

According to IBHS, to get started, a business owner should download the free OFB-EZ toolkit and go through each of the eight modules below. Once finished, the next step is to print out multiple copies of the final plan for quick access in the office in a safe, off-site location and save the files to a flash drive.

• Know Your Risks – Evaluate the extent of your business’ vulnerability to disruptions.

• Know Your Operations – Identify your key business functions and processes and decide how long you can go without being able to perform each of them.

• Know Your Employees – Keep employee contact information updated to locate them after a disaster, inquire about their safety, and inform them about the status of your business operations, where and if they should report and what to do following a disaster.

• Know Your Vendors, Key Contacts and Key Customers – Keep contact information for your key customers, contacts, suppliers and vendors up-to-date.

• Know Your Information Technologies – Protect your company’s hardware and data.

• Know Your Finances – Establishing clear strategies and procedures for controlling costs, reporting information to appropriate organizations and clearly budgeting for and tracking what is actually spent during a significant disruption can have a positive impact on the business’ bottom line performance and recovery.

• Know Where to Go For Help – Maintain a channel of communication with community leaders, public safety organizations such as the police, fire and emergency medical services, government agencies, utility companies, and others

• Know When to Update and Test Your Plan – Schedule regular reviews and updates to your plan.

With OFB-EZ, IBHS is leading the way toward greater resiliency for the even the smallest of business operations. Business continuity planning is constantly evolving in response to improvements in technology and the increased demands on everyone’s time.

“OFB-EZ focuses on the best practices of business continuity planning,” said Moraton, “It is disaster resilience for a modern world where cutting through the clutter can be challenging.”

Learn more about OFB-EZ … and find other IBHS tools, videos and a vast library of preparedness research and resources at www.disastersafety.org or follow them on Facebook or Twitter, and share ideas with others in your community.  

Beautiful views from above (photos of North America from NASA satellites and ISS)

“Space … the final frontier” are famous words from a fave show of many boomers, Gen-Xers and others.

And while NASA provides us with many breathtaking photos of our solar system and beyond, they also share incredible shots of our planet from their satellites and by astronauts in the International Space Station.

We hope you enjoy today’s Friday Fotos with a short description of each provided by The Weather Channel and NASA. And remember these are just a tiny sampling of earth’s amazing beauty so check out some links below to visit TWC and NASA photo galleries.

 
The Advanced Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer instrument on NASA’s Terra spacecraft provided this spacebird’s-eye view of the eastern part of Grand Canyon National Park in northern Arizona in this image, acquired July 14, 2011. (NASA)

Crater Lake National Park, Oregon. Landsat 5 acquired this image on September 9, 2011. Vegetation is green, bare ground is brown, smoke is white and water is blue. (NASA/GSFC/Landsat)

Everglades National Park in southern Florida is the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States. Known as the ‘river of grass,’ the Everglades wetlands and wooded uplands host a variety of endangered species including crocodiles, manatees, and panthers. (NASA)

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park straddles the ridge line of the Appalachian Mountains in the southern United States. The border between Tennessee to the west and North Carolina to the east runs vertically through the middle of the park. (NASA)

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii. On March 5, 2011, one of the world’s most active volcanoes—Kilauea—surged with flows of fresh lava and the opening of a new fissure. The eruption touched off a forest fire that burned for much of the month and threatened one of Hawaii’s protected rain forests. (NASA)

The south end of Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas shimmers in turquoise waters in this 2002 photo from the International Space Station.

See more amazing photos on The Weather Channel site  or visit NASA’s Earth Day gallery and NASA Image Gallery

Stay safe and have a great weekend everyone! 🙂 j & B

Snow plows in July?? (NM storm dumps over a foot of hail clogging roads)

The Weather Channel reports a lone thunderstorm dumped over a foot of hail in the town of Santa Rosa, New Mexico last Wednesday evening (July 3, 2013), leaving a surreal sight the day before the Fourth of July.

Photos from the Santa Rosa Fire Department showed snow plows clearing city streets clogged with accumulated hail drifts. According to the National Weather Service in Albuquerque, hail up to golfball size pelted the city around 6:00 p.m. MDT.

Although this sounds strange, accumulating hail is not uncommon in the High Plains according to TWC. Northeast New Mexico sits in what meteorologists call “Hail Alley“, a swath from southeast Wyoming and northeast Colorado to northeast New Mexico and the Texas Panhandle, where large hail falls on average at least three days a year.

And, considering much of the country is sweltering with intense heat, we thought this might be a “cool” set of Friday Fotos to share.

A police vehicle navigates a hail-clogged street in Santa Rosa, N.M. on July 3, 2013. (Credit: N.M. State Police)

A few of accumulated hail on a street in Santa Rosa, N.M. on July 3, 2013. (Credit: N.M State Police)

As fyi … above is the record-setting hailstone that fell in Vivian, South Dakota on July 23, 2010. The hailstone broke the U.S. records for largest hailstone by diameter (8 inches / 20 cm) and weight (1 pound 15 ounces). Credit: NWS Aberdeen, SD

TWC writes some other unusual hailstorm events include:

• April 11, 2012 (Dumas, TX): The volume of both hail and rain overwhelmed a shallow gully, or draw, near the U.S. 287 bridge, piling the water and ice mass into massive drifts up to 10 feet high, trapping vehicles and forcing closure of the road for 12 hours.

• August 14, 2004 (Clayton, NM): Up to 16-foot hail glaciers. Some ice cover lasted almost a month…even in late summer!

• May 9, 1994 (Dalhart, TX): Up to three-foot hail drifts shutdown U.S. 385 for almost one month

We also found a short video by TWC’s Dr Greg Forbes explaining how thunderstorms produce hail.

Stay safe and cool out there .. and have a great weekend! 🙂 j & B

Memorial honoring Arizona 19 fallen firefighters (9-Jul-2013 11a-1p PDT)

Today, July 9, 2013, there will be a celebration of life memorial in Prescott Valley from 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM Pacific to honor Arizona’s 19 elite firefighters killed in the Yarnell Hill Fire.

AZCentral.com reports all available tickets for the service at the 5,000-seat Tim’s Toyota Center are gone with bulk of the tickets being issued to family of the Granite Mountain Hotshots crew and support “fire family” personnel.

Live streaming coverage of the 2 hour service can be viewed on AZCentral / NBC.

The program for the Memorial is available here (8-pg PDF).

If you’d like to learn how to help the families of the fallen heroes, please visit http://yarnellfallenfirefighters.com/

Our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to the fallen heroes families, our state of Arizona and the entire firefighter/EMS nation.

Tribute to our Arizona 19 (and some ways to help families of the fallen firefighters)

As we posted earlier this week, Arizona lost 19 of our elite firefighters in the Yarnell Hill Fire on June 30, 2013.

On July 1st a caravan of 19 vans took the bodies to the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office to perform autopsies since the Yavapai County authorities didn’t have the resources to handle so many casualties.

The remains of our Fallen Firefighters will be escorted, with full Honor Guard, from Phoenix to the Yavapai County Medical Examiner’s Office on Sunday, July 7, beginning at 10 a.m. PDT. A majority of the route from Phoenix to Prescott Valley is open to the public for those who would like to pay tribute, and the procession route  is available on YarnellFallenFirefighters.com.

Then a Memorial Service will be held Tuesday, July 9, 2013 at Tim’s Toyota Center in Prescott Valley, Arizona from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pacific.

We wanted to take another moment to honor our Granite Mountain Hotshots with several photos we found on Facebook this week, and provide some links to several organizations that are raising funds for the families of these heroes. Also please take a moment to view a video tribute by elledub1015 at the bottom.

The final photo Arizona firefighter Andrew Ashcraft texted to his wife before persishing in the Yarnell Hill fire – from Prescott Granite Mountain Hotshots FB page

Wade Parker sent this photo of a crew mate and the approaching fire by text message to his mother before he and 18 other firefighters were fatally overrun by flames in the Arizona blaze. “This thing is running straight for Yarnell,” he wrote in the 4:04 p.m. text. (Wade Parker / June 30, 2013) via LA Times

A chain with 19 links hangs locked on the fence outside the Granite Mountain Interagency Hotshot Crew fire station, Monday, July 1, 2013 in Prescott, Ariz. The chain, left by Slade Graves, has 19 links to signify 19 men linked. Graves said she wanted to give the combination of the lock to the survivor of the team. Photo via FB pg

Designed by National Firefighters Endowment via FB

Anthem, Arizona tribute to the fallen firefighters, at the top of Daisy Mountain, looking west toward Yarnell. July 4, 2013. via FB

Photo credit: unknown via FB

How to help the families of our fallen heroes

The Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial Incident Management Team has raised more than $800,000 through three firefighter-endorsed organizations: the 100 Club of Arizona, the Wildland Firefighters Foundation, and the United Phoenix Firefighters Association. Other similar websites have also been created, but their intent or credibility has not been verified. The Team encourages all donors to first check the credibility and confirm their 501C3 status before donating.

The Prescott Firefighter’s Charities is operated by Prescott firefighters, and they are ensuring 100% of any and all donations will go to the families of the fallen firefighters. No money will be diverted for administration costs, advertising, etc. The only exception is a 2.3% processing fee charged by PayPal, which is a lower fee than typical credit card transaction rates. Learn more

Yavapai College is creating a scholarship fund for the children and spouses of the 19 firefighters who died battling the wildfire in Yarnell. Officials at the Prescott school say some of the Granite Mountain Hotshots team members were Yavapai College students and many were in its fire science program. The Granite Mountain Hotshots Scholarship Fund will provide two-year scholarships for the community college education needs of the children and spouses of the fallen firefighters. Read more

A Tribute

Our thoughts and prayers continue to go out to the families of the fallen Arizona 19 (a.k.a. Prescott 19), the cities of Yarnell and Prescott, and the entire FF/EMS Brotherhood. Rest in peace…

Happy Independence Day and some Interesting Facts about our Declaration

Every year on the 4th of July Americans celebrate our country’s adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

But, as Heritage explains, Independence Day is a great opportunity to renew our dedication to the principles of liberty and equality enshrined in what Thomas Jefferson called “the declaratory charter of our rights.

A tradition in our household is to read the Declaration of Independence (and the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights) every year as a reminder of the freedoms our Founders fought and died for.  This holiday is also a great time to reflect on our armed forces, and their families,who give so much in the name of defending the ideals and free institutions we often take for granted.

Some interesting Q&As and factoids about the Declaration of Independence from Archives.gov include…

Questions & Answers

Q. Is anything written on the back of the Declaration of Independence?

A. Yes, there is writing on the back of the original, signed Declaration of Independence. But it is not invisible, nor does it include a map, as the Disney feature film, National Treasure, suggests. The writing on the back reads “Original Declaration of Independence, dated 4th July 1776,” and it appears on the bottom of the document, upside down.

Q. Is the original Declaration of Independence written on paper?

A. No, the original was engrossed on parchment which is an animal skin specially treated with lime and stretched to create a strong, long-lasting writing support. The printed version is on paper and was read aloud from town squares throughout the colonies, so that those who could not read would receive the news about intended separation from England.

Q. Was Thomas Jefferson the only person involved in writing the Declaration of Independence?

A. Jefferson was the author of the document and was a member of the Committee of Five that was appointed to draft a statement presenting to the world the colonies case for independence. The committee consisted of two New England men, John Adams of Massachusetts and Roger Sherman of Connecticut; two men from the Middle Colonies, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania and Robert R. Livingston of New York; and one southerner, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia.

Did You Know…

• the Declaration of Independence was adopted by 12 of 13 colonies (New York not voting) on July 4, 1776, but wasn’t actually signed by all the delegates until August 2, 1776.

• John Hancock, the President of the Congress, was the first to sign the sheet of parchment measuring 24¼ by 29¾ inches.

• the Declaration of Independence is housed in a specially sealed encasement containing the inert gas argon with a controlled amount of humidity to keep the parchment flexible. The encasement is constructed of ballistically resistant materials. The document is closely guarded.

• If you were a member of the Second Continental Congress in 1776, you were a rebel and considered a traitor by the King of England. You knew that a reward had been posted for the capture of certain prominent rebel leaders and signing your name to the Declaration meant that you pledged your life, your fortune, and your sacred honor to the cause of freedom.

• Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and member of the Committee of Five died on July 4, 1826. And John Adams, also a committee member, died on the same day.

Read more on Archives.gov … and we hope you and yours have a fun, safe Independence Day holiday! j & B

Arizona wildfire kills 19 of our elite firefighters + The Hotshot’s Prayer

Arizona suffered a devastating loss yesterday. Nineteen firefighters from the elite Granite Mountain Hotshots of Prescott, died Sunday fighting an out-of-control wildfire in Yarnell, a tiny Yavapai County town roughly 80 miles northwest of Phoenix.

About half of the town’s 500 homes were feared destroyed by the blaze, which began early Friday evening and had spread to 8,374 acres by early Monday. All of Yarnell and the neighboring Peeples Valley were evacuated. Fire crews reported no containment as of Monday morning (1-Jul-2013).

The National Fire Protection Association website lists the last wildland fire to kill more firefighters as the 1933 Griffith Park fire of Los Angeles, which killed 29. The most firefighters — 340 — were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York.

The Granite Mountain Hotshots, established in 2002, were an elite ground firefighting crew known for their innovative problem-solving and history of safe, aggressive fire suppression.

Members of the crew were highly trained, came from diverse backgrounds, and worked long hours in extreme environmental conditions doing the most demanding of fireline tasks.

According to The Daily Courier…

• They carried 50-70 pounds on their back, hiked seven miles or more to where they needed to work, and worked up to 14 hours, sometimes longer.

• The average age of the men in the hotshot crew was 27-years-old.

• “They have to be ready to leave for an assignment on two hours’ notice, which sometimes means missing family events,”Wade Ward of the Prescott FD said last week. “They have to be prepared to be on that assignment for 21 days, get two days rest at home, and possibly be sent out on another 21-day assignment.”

Prior to the Yarnell Hill fire which took nearly all of their lives, the team had just returned from a wildfire in New Mexico.

Just one week ago, the same crew also led the charge against the massive Doce fire in the Prescott National Forest.

We’d like to take a moment to extend our condolences to the elite fallen firefighters, their families, the cities of Yarnell and Prescott and the entire firefighter nation. Words can never adequately express the gratitude we have for all first responders who sacrifice so much to help keep us safe. Our thoughts and prayers are with all those impacted by this and other wildfires ravaging the nation. Bill & Janet Liebsch, Fedhealth, Tucson AZ