Sound The Alarm

We are two weeks past the day when we all changed our clocks.
The day when we spring forward.
The day when we lose one hour of sleep.
The day when we are supposed to check our smoke detectors.

It is the reminder that comes twice a year.
Change the batteries in your smoke detector when you change your clocks.
There are many news reports about houses that have been destroyed by fire.
Destroyed needlessly, the report says, because of the lack of smoke detectors.

Sometimes, fires happen and homes are destroyed even when there are smoke detectors.
One news story caused me to pause.
The story was posted on Facebook.
I have been pondering it ever since.

Two families agreed to have their children learn about the importance of fire safety.
They were told that one night they would test the effectiveness of what they learned.
One week later, with their parent’s permission, night vision cameras were set up.
Four children ages 3-7 and one child age 12, slept as the smoke detectors went off.

The alarm shrieked for two minutes and none of the children stirred.
The smoke detectors were right outside the bedroom doors but no child moved.
The report from a news station in Boston showed the children sleeping the whole time.
The parents watched, astonished and visibly upset.

Smoke detectors do an excellent job of waking up adults and are vital in every home.
The results are not the same for children.
Children’s sleep patterns are different.
The sound of the alarm alone was not enough to get the children out of bed.

The news report aired five years ago.
At that time a company came up with another type of smoke detector.
A smoke detector with an alarm and with the ability to prerecord the voice of the parent.
____, Wake up! ____, Wake up! It’s a fire drill! Get out of bed!

In every instance, the children were out of bed within seconds.
With the alarm alone, they were still asleep two minutes later as the alarm sounded.
According to the fire chief, every second counts.
The familiar sound of the parent’s voice caused the children to get out of bed.

It was very disconcerting to see.
The parents of the 12-year-old commented that she often babysits her 3-year-old brother.
The mother shook her head and said, they wouldn’t even hear the alarm if it went off.
The video and subsequent news articles I read came to the same conclusion.

The official journal of American Academy of Pediatrics reported the findings of a study.
This report was copyrighted in 2006.

BACKGROUND. Conventional residential tone smoke alarms fail to awaken the majority of children during slow wave sleep. With the objective of identifying a more effective smoke alarm for children, we compared a personalized parent voice smoke alarm with a conventional residential tone smoke alarm, both presented at 100 dB, with respect to their ability to awaken children 6- to 12-years-old from stage 4 sleep and prompt their performance of a simulated self-rescue escape procedure.

RESULTS. Twenty-four children were enrolled. The median age was 9 years, and 11 (46%) were boys. One half of the children received the parent voice alarm first, and one half received the tone alarm first; however, the order that the alarm stimuli were presented was not statistically associated with awakening or escaping. Twenty-three (96%) of the 24 subjects awakened to the parent voice alarm compared with 14 (58%) to the tone alarm. One child did not awaken to either stimulus. Nine children awakened to their parent’s voice but not to the tone, whereas none awakened to only the tone and not the voice. Twenty (83%) of the subjects in the parent voice alarm group successfully performed the escape procedure within 5 minutes of alarm onset compared with 9 (38%) in the tone alarm group. The median time to awaken was 20 seconds in the voice alarm group compared with 3 minutes in the tone alarm group. The median time to escape was 38 seconds in the voice alarm group compared with the maximum allowed 5 minutes in the tone alarm group. When exposed to the tone alarm, older children were more likely to awaken and were more likely to escape than younger children. There was no association between child’s age and awakening or escaping for children exposed to the parent voice alarm. There was no association between child’s gender and awakening or escaping for either alarm type.

The study is worth investigating.
The results are worth contemplating.

I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger, in fact they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice. (John 10:1-5)

It is the same for us.
Jesus’ voice is our wake up call.
Other voices, other alarms will not cause us to stir.
Only Jesus’ voice will wake us up and lead us to safety.

Jesus’ voice is familiar.
Jesus’ call is irrevocable.
When we hear Jesus’ voice, we respond.
Responding to His call in faith saves us from destruction.

Do you hear Him calling?
Wake up!
This is not a drill!
Wake up!