My 9 year old recently asked me what “stop-drop-and-roll” was and I explained it was if you were on fire and she gave me a really skeptical look and asked, “did that happen a lot when you were a kid?”
I imagine it was also more common when people regularly had fires in their own homes. I bought that same child a pair of pajamas as a toddler that had a million warning tags about keeping them away from open flames because they weren’t flame resistant… Not a problem, I tended to keep my babies away from open flames regardless.
My stepbrother was caught in a house fire as a teenager and he has third degree burn scars over like 60% of his body. Stop, drop and roll probably saved his life.
So it does happen, but it’s always like there’s this person who knows this guy that it happened to and not like it happened to everyone.
Children are fantastic at injuring themselves. My oldest, now grown, really wanted to touch the candle flame. No amount of removing him from the situation and telling him it was hot stopped him from trying to touch the fire. He learned the hard way. If he had panicked I could see him lightning himself on fire.
I omve touched the muffler of my dad’s bike when I was real small. If I remember correctly, he just went “well what did you expect?”(not in an uncaring way, mind) since I was told not to touch it. Truly, what the hell did I expect?
I can still remember the day i learned that the stove is hot. I was about 4 at the time, and i only got a 0.5cm blister on my thumb, but some things seemingly must be experienced to be internalized.
At that point you just gotta remove anything that he could use to make the situation worse, say “Please don’t”, and then let him touch the fire. And hopefully then he’ll learn to listen some.
If you are fast enough, getting rid of the burning article is a good approach. if your overalls already started melting into your skin tho, it’s probably not even possible at that point
When I was about 10, my dad asked me to light the fireplace. No big deal, I did that all the time at that point. I sat cross legged in front of the fireplace and struck the match like always. I was instantly reminded of the fact that I was wearing these really fuzzy wool plaid pajama pants as I was pretty instantly on fire when a stray spark hut them. All of that “stop drop and roll” training went out the window as I went into a complete panic and started to run. My dad had to tackle me and rip the pants off of me as I was still freaking out.
Shiiit. Every accelerant in my parents garage had been burned up by the time I was 13. Fire is awesome! I never needed to use stop-drop-and-roll, but I was damn ready to do so if things went south.
Yep. I’m old enough to remember doing nuclear attack drills in school a couple of times a school year.
There were 2 different drills, if there was a warning, and we had time we would all file out to a designated hallway, sit down with crossed legs facing the wall, head forward and hands clasped over your head with your eyes closed tight.
If there was no warning you either stayed in your desk, put your head down, closed your eyes tightly, and covered the back of your head with your hands. You could also slide under your desk, close your eyes, and cover your head. Pretty much the exact same drill schools still use today for tornados if you live in a tornado risk area.
As an old medic/firefighter, I cannot stress these drills enough. While they are designed to save lives, and they most definitely can, they also make it much easier to find the bodies because they will all be pretty much centrally located.
My 9 year old recently asked me what “stop-drop-and-roll” was and I explained it was if you were on fire and she gave me a really skeptical look and asked, “did that happen a lot when you were a kid?”
No, it happened at a large enough scale in the country of 300M people that we did something about it
About as often as getting stuck in quicksand
Only needs to happen once in a lifetime. Grease fires are more common than you might think.
I imagine someone who wasn’t taught stop drop and roll would just run around panicking. But probably a lot of people who were taught it as well.
I imagine it was also more common when people regularly had fires in their own homes. I bought that same child a pair of pajamas as a toddler that had a million warning tags about keeping them away from open flames because they weren’t flame resistant… Not a problem, I tended to keep my babies away from open flames regardless.
My stepbrother was caught in a house fire as a teenager and he has third degree burn scars over like 60% of his body. Stop, drop and roll probably saved his life.
So it does happen, but it’s always like there’s this person who knows this guy that it happened to and not like it happened to everyone.
Children are fantastic at injuring themselves. My oldest, now grown, really wanted to touch the candle flame. No amount of removing him from the situation and telling him it was hot stopped him from trying to touch the fire. He learned the hard way. If he had panicked I could see him lightning himself on fire.
I omve touched the muffler of my dad’s bike when I was real small. If I remember correctly, he just went “well what did you expect?”(not in an uncaring way, mind) since I was told not to touch it. Truly, what the hell did I expect?
I can still remember the day i learned that the stove is hot. I was about 4 at the time, and i only got a 0.5cm blister on my thumb, but some things seemingly must be experienced to be internalized.
At that point you just gotta remove anything that he could use to make the situation worse, say “Please don’t”, and then let him touch the fire. And hopefully then he’ll learn to listen some.
It happened to me but that would have been the wrong reaction, tearing my overalls off was much more effective
If you are fast enough, getting rid of the burning article is a good approach. if your overalls already started melting into your skin tho, it’s probably not even possible at that point
They’ll drop and stop sooner or later once the running gets boring. Might not roll though.
I don’t think that boring is the operative factor in this situation. But otherwise I would say you are technically correct.
When I was about 10, my dad asked me to light the fireplace. No big deal, I did that all the time at that point. I sat cross legged in front of the fireplace and struck the match like always. I was instantly reminded of the fact that I was wearing these really fuzzy wool plaid pajama pants as I was pretty instantly on fire when a stray spark hut them. All of that “stop drop and roll” training went out the window as I went into a complete panic and started to run. My dad had to tackle me and rip the pants off of me as I was still freaking out.
Great dad work! 100%
It was crazy. I never have worn pants like that again lol.
I’m not surprised; I’m glad that you are able to ‘lol’ about it now.
Getting stopped, dropped and de-panted is either a great or a terrible evening. There is no in-between
The 80s was an incredibly flammable time for clothing fabrics.
Shiiit. Every accelerant in my parents garage had been burned up by the time I was 13. Fire is awesome! I never needed to use stop-drop-and-roll, but I was damn ready to do so if things went south.
There were supposedly lots of nuclear wars in the sixties. Or something.
Yep. I’m old enough to remember doing nuclear attack drills in school a couple of times a school year.
There were 2 different drills, if there was a warning, and we had time we would all file out to a designated hallway, sit down with crossed legs facing the wall, head forward and hands clasped over your head with your eyes closed tight.
If there was no warning you either stayed in your desk, put your head down, closed your eyes tightly, and covered the back of your head with your hands. You could also slide under your desk, close your eyes, and cover your head. Pretty much the exact same drill schools still use today for tornados if you live in a tornado risk area.
As an old medic/firefighter, I cannot stress these drills enough. While they are designed to save lives, and they most definitely can, they also make it much easier to find the bodies because they will all be pretty much centrally located.
Would have been more useful for influencers nowadays.
Amazing