In an effort to prepare adults with special needs with the knowledge to replace the fear of what to expect and how to react during an emergency situation the Owensboro Fire Department has announced they will be hosting “Replacing Fear With Knowledge” on Thursday, July 25.
“This is the first event of its kind and I hope more to come,” said Lt. Jacob Seaton with Station 3 of the Owensboro Fire Department.
Seaton is leading the inaugural event hosted at Century Christian Church on Tamarack Road. The event welcomes all community members who have special needs and who are living or will be living or staying independently by themselves.
“The idea was to set up a field day for adults with special needs or cognitive disabilities. We want to help support them in how to handle emergency situations and not be scared,” Seaton said.
Seaton explained that, for this group of the population, things can easily be triggers that might otherwise be common knowledge to the majority of the community.
“For someone that has autism or a cognitive disability, a simple smoke detector going off in their house can shatter their whole world,” Seaton said. “If the sirens are a trigger for those individuals, we want to attempt to turn those sirens into knowing what to do when they hear those sirens. Replacing their fears with knowledge.”
Seaton and the department felt this portion of the population was underserved when it came to emergency education. As it’s the first year hosting such an event they don’t know how many people the outreach may serve but have hopes it’s well attended.
“Every October we bring the second graders out to the tower for education but this is a part of the population that we’d like to create an event to take part in that prevention process,” Seaton said. “If we help one person it’s well worth it and we’ve done our job for the day.”
The five stations of the event include several experts in the community. Chief Steve Mitchell, Battalion Chief Leonard, Captain Richard Peach, Dispatch Director Paul Nave, Lieutenant/Paramedic Jacob Seaton and Chief Meteorologist Jeff Lyons will all play an active role in the free community event.
“We’ll cover things like what does it mean when your smoke detector goes off and what to do when it goes off, how to handle a fire extinguisher if needed, how to call 911 and also when to call 911,” Seaton said. “We’ll also discuss exit drills in the home and just basic survival stuff such as small medical emergencies and basic first aid.”
In years past, the fire department has received training from the Owensboro Autism Network and other outside organizations providing training on communication needs for those with cognitive disabilities and specifically those that may be non-verbal.
The fire department has an estimated 100 firefighters covering a population of 60,000 people. They have gone to great detail to organize such an event in hopes that this segment of the population benefits greatly from the education provided.
“If we can take that fear and replace it with knowledge, it better prepares them and puts their mind at ease on how to handle such situations,” Seaton said.
For more information on the event, please visit their Facebook page.
RSVP by email to [email protected] by July 20.
