By Chris Tiedje
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
As I was trolling through my morning reading ritual of scanning headlines, I stumbled across this on CBS News: “911 Dispatcher: Boy’s Call ‘Unbearable”‘ Needless to say, I had to read it. I still have goosebumps from listening to the audio clip.
The part of the story which stuck out for me was the part about the 7-year-old’s ability to remain calm because his mother used to make him practice calling 911 in case of an emergency. Brilliant! This kid’s parents were being held at gunpoint right outside the bathroom where he was hiding, and yet this kid knew what do to and held it together. He probably saved all of their lives. Amazing.
I don’t know about you guys, but I will be going straight home to start practicing this with my 6-year-old. I hit Google to try and find some good resources, and came across this great site (http://www.sesameworkshop.org/initiatives/emotion/ready ) on emergency preparedness featuring the Sesame Street gang. There are videos, PDFs in English and Spanish and links to other helpful sites. Do you know of any other good resources? Share with us in the comments.
Hopefully you’ll never need it, but I think this story shows that it is better to be prepared.