A $2 solution

It's so easy to assume these days that any problems we haven't already solved must demand some complicated, expensive fix.

But once in a while, someone comes up with an idea so simple you wonder how we couldn't have seen it staring us in the face all along.

Take the 9-volt battery, sitting right there near the checkout at just about every store you frequent. What does it cost, a couple of bucks?

If you think about it at all, you're not likely to consider the 9-volt much of a lifesaver. So why did 200 Iowa fire departments recently walk away from annual State Fire School with handfuls of the things?

It's part of Operation Safe Senior, launched by the state fire marshal this month.

State officials at the Fire School handed out 13,000 9-volt batteries to members of fire departments for their pledges to have emergency responders check for and install the batteries in smoke detectors when they're dispatched to seniors' homes for welfare checks, inspections or medical calls.

It's an easy, while-they're-there, “oh, by the way” solution to a pervasive and life-threatening problem.

Smoke detectors save lives, but only if they're working. That's where the 9-volts come in.

Five people already have died in Iowa fires this year, including 82-year-old Marjorie Anderson, whose Spirit Lake home didn't have a working smoke detector when it caught fire last month.

At least 13 of the 32 people who died in Iowa fires last year lost their lives in buildings without an operating smoke detector - like 59-year-old Ernest Moomey of Cedar Rapids. Moomey's neighbor pulled the man from his burning apartment early last October. But it was too late - Moomey died from fire-related injuries.

A working smoke detector could have alerted Moomey or neighbors sooner. It could well have saved his life.

Fire fatalities in Iowa have dramatically increased - up 60 percent in the past few years. It's heartbreaking to think of how many of those deaths could have been prevented.

Operation Safe Senior comes on the heels of another state program that aims to ensure there are at least two working smoke detectors in the homes of Iowa's K-6th-graders by year's end.

Targeting seniors and kids - two population groups especially vulnerable - could help curb the upward trend in fire deaths. Still, officials won't be able to reach every Iowan, they'll need some help.

I wonder: How many of the people in your life are worth $2?

Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net