February 5-11, 2012 is Burn Awareness Week. Please keep that in mind as you go about your daily lives. While scalds and minor burns are a “part of the job” for those in the fire service, the vast majority of injuries are household accidents and many involve small children, whose skin is thinner than adults and suffer substantially more damage than an adult would in similar circumstances.
For all the members of the fire service out there, please be safe, and do what you can to support those wonderful organizations and the angels that work with burn victims. As someone who once spent a night at St. Barnabas Burn Center for observation after a fire ground incident, I can attest to the wonderful things that these people do and the gut wrenching things they have to deal with on a daily basis. This is one of the reasons that Fire & Safety Services, proudly sponsors the Burn Foundation (www.burnfoundation.org) and their efforts through the piece of art that Joe Getsinger does each year on their behalf. The Burn Foundation works hard on several fronts (Prevention, Education, Treatment, Recovery) to limit the number of injuries, and the impact on the victims. The work with four hospitals that cover Southern New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland to accomplish this goal.