Smoke Alarm Promises To Get Kids Out Of Harm's Way

Most homes are outfitted with smoke alarms and many parents have taught their kids how to get out in case of fire.

But what happens when the alarm doesn’t wake the child?

By the time people reach adulthood, most have come to the rude awakening that their sleep is going to be routinely interrupted.

Adults trained to jump when things go bump in the night.

"Adults are the ones who have to get out of bed and go charging out if they hear a noise in the middle of the night," said Dr. William Glomb, a pediatric sleep doctor with Children’s Hospital of Austin.

But for children, it's a whole different story. They slumber carefree, often oblivious to noises around them, even when those noises could save their little lives.

But one product promises to be much more effective at getting them out of bed and out of harm's way.

Callie, 5, is the daughter of Austin firefighter Carmen McGuire. Because of what her mother does for a living, Callie has been drilled on how to get out of a burning house. But Callie would still have to wake up before she could put that training to good use.

CBS 42 set off her bedroom’s smoke detector to see if she would wake up. After it sounded for almost a minute and a half, she didn’t.

"The alarm is definitely loud enough to wake everyone up,” McGuire said. “But Callie laid there and didn't move a muscle. It really bothers me."

The latest national statistics say that 82 percent of kids who died in fires were asleep when they succumbed.

Dr. William Glomb, the director of Austin's only pediatric sleep lab at Children’s Hospital of Austin, says the period of the night when people are sleeping dreamlessly is to blame.

"We are very close to general anesthesia each night when we spend time in this sleep,” Glomb said. “There are a lot of quotes about how dreamless sleep is close to death."

Again, as adults, we've been conditioned to awaken even from this dead sleep. But kids have not.

In an eight hour night, children spend an average of two hours in the deep sleep.

If the alarm goes off during that quarter of the night, "they might not arouse," Glomb said.

A recent independent study confirms what appears to be an alarming trend. Only 58 percent of kids in the study awoke to a conventional smoke detector tone. The others needed something more, like a mother’s voice.

The Signal One voice alarm allows parents to record personal commands to be combined with a high pitch chirp of the alarm.

The company's publicity tape makes it seem like a surefire way to save kids should fire break out. But could anything arouse Callie from her slumber?

CBS 42 tried it the new alarm.

Callie, who slept through nearly 90 seconds of the conventional alarm, popped her eyes open after just four seconds of the voice version. Stubbornly, she tried to fall asleep again, but as the recording repeated over and over, she couldn't resist. Fifty seconds after it began, Callie was not only up, she was sitting up.

"She actually heard it and that really makes me happy," McGuire said.

This isn't the only success story. In the study that showed only 58 percent of kids responding to the tone-only smoke alarms, the response rated jumped to 96 percent with the addition of a parent's recorded voice.

Glomb calls that truly eye-opening. The doctor says he would like to see other, larger studies done to confirm the results of that one.

CBS 42 wants to make it clear that in no way are we endorsing the voice smoke alarm. But, if you are interested, CBS 42 couldn't find it at any Austin area stores. We had to go online to buy it for about $35.

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