County kids learn life-saving skills

PROVO — Chantilly Beaumont may be tiny, but she knows how to get out of the house if there's a fire.

"You crawl out," the 6-year-old from Provo said.

The Provo Fire Department brought its fire safety trailer to the Utah County Health's Department's Safe Kids Day at Pioneer Park to give children hands-on instruction on safety.

The Utah County Safe Kids Chapter sponsored the Safe Kids Day Camp.

Firefighters taught youngsters to drop to the floor to get under the smoke and exit. The trailer, complete with fake smoke, gave children experience in escaping a blaze.

The department gave away fire detectors to families who needed them and toy firefighter helmets to the kids.

Other safety skills were taught under rainy skies at a variety of booths ranging from safe bicycle riding to how to properly buckle a child automobile booster seat.

Wyatt Harris of Spanish Fork set up a safe bike riding course to give

youngsters safety tips as his Boy Scout Eagle project. The bicycles, road signs and cones came from the heath department's Bicycle Rodeo program, while volunteers assisted in giving out information and testing the kids' bike riding knowledge.

"It was pretty fun," said one of the children, Angelina Kester of Provo. "It taught me to wear a helmet and how to wear it," she said.

The three rules for fitting a bicycle helmet, said volunteer Natalie Benson, are:

• The front of the helmet should be two child's fingers above the eyebrows.

• The strap under the chin should be no tighter than one finger.

• The strap around the ears is fitted by making a peace sign with the ear in between the two fingers.

Costumed characters added to the damp but festive nature of the event, including Smokey the Bear, the American Red Cross' Ready Dog and Vince and Larry, the crash test dummies.

Youngsters were taught how to stop bleeding by practicing on Ready Dog. Volunteers taught them how to wrap a cut and to keep it elevated above the heart if it is bleeding seriously.

Collin Maassen, 7, of Provo showed how he learned to do an abdominal thrust to assist a person who might be choking after seeing the demonstration by volunteer Elizabeth Keel.