On Sun, 4 Oct 2009 19:12:40 -0700 (PDT), Tom Horne
wrote:



I once helped a fellow firefighter rig up a home fire sprinkler system
for his father in law who the entire family was sure would immolate
himself by smoking a pipe in his favorite chair just prior to bed.
Since we did all of the work ourselves the whole sprinkler system cost
less then the final piece. That piece was a smoke detector that had a
plunger to break the glass bulb that held the sprinkler over that
chair closed. Twenty years on and his father in law had died of heart
failure in his sleep so who did that detector save? It saved the
alcoholic mother of the single mom with two children who had bought
the small bungalow were his step father had lived. It also saved the
home owner and her two children of course so I'd say that the work was
worth our time. Grandma was transported to the hospital for treatment
of smoke inhalation, a small burn to her hand, and a mild case of
hypothermia from the forty gallons a minute of cold water that had
flowed over her.

Pretty amazing.

--
Tom Horne