DEMENTIA CARE: DECEMBER FLOWERS AND FIGHTING A FIRE.

What do we call this one? All the fun of dementia care while tackling a fire? There’s an obvious alternative. All the fun of tackling a fire while engaged in dementia care. Fun and games with smoke detectors.

The story. It’s winter. A mild winter, admittedly, but not to the elderly. In Scotland, a summer’s day seems Decemberish to the elderly.

I’ll start with flowers in December. Flowers latched onto a new slice of the garden, where the sun lasts longest in the shortening months. As a result of this flowering, flowers lasted longer. The last of those flowers made it through to the first few days of December.

   A mild December. The flowers did well to last into that phase, far beyond active ants, busy bees, and sneaky spiders. Except for that one really sneaky spider, who tried to mug me as I opened the door the other night.

   Survivors. One sneaky spider. A fastidious flower.

It’s winter. Time for hot water bottles. And a heating pad. This is a miniature electric blanket. I’ve always treated electric blankets with suspicion, and I’ve never owned any. This small pad comes into the house as a gift.

   The pad is a winter item, only. With winter’s return, out comes the mini-blanket. I use it to heat my mother’s nightgown, to take the chill off the material at night. Cold items feel wet to the elderly, and the illusion of wetness discourages contact.

   I’ve been told I need to dry that. And I’ve responded that it isn’t wet – merely cold.

The scene is set. I’ve just cooked boiled eggs, so I know the heating pad hasn’t been on for ten minutes. It’s plugged into the wall, and all is right with the world. For comfort, my mother sleeps between duvets. Warmth from above, and padding beneath. The heating pad sits between duvets.

   But we aren’t at the final stage yet. The nightgown isn’t in place, slipped over the heating pad for the customary warming.

There’s a cry.

This is soaking.

I wonder what that means. A minute ago I was in that room, handing out a drink. She finished the drink, and I took the cup away. No spillage. And no capacity for more. Perhaps this is the delusion again – the trick that makes old skin feel wet when merely cold. She’s describing fabric, perhaps.

   Time to shout out. I ask what is soaking.

This thing is smoking.

What thing?

This thing.

Informative. Couldn’t she just shout FIRE! like a normal panicky person? Or, if you are me, FUCKING FIRE!

I walk into the room, opening the door wide. A step in, and I see the heating pad is on fire. No flames yet. But this thing is smoking like a cliché. You know the one.

That’s an electrical fire.

   I lower myself below smoke level and reach carefully for the switch. Off. I yank the plug from the socket and stand up, telling my mother to evacuate. She moves through the room and leaves. At this point the smoke churns more violently, and the smoke alarm goes off.

   With my mother evacuated to the floor below, I have several choices. The first is to hold my breath. It’s not a choice. A necessity. I know smoke weaves a deadly spiral path, and a short one.

   Now I have one minute in which to act. I’m pretty sure I stole that scrap of advice from a fireman.

Choices.

   Move two steps back to another room and grab the fire extinguisher waiting at a convenient height, just inside the door.

   Race across the upper hall to the bathroom. Drop the offending article into the sink. Pour the taps on, and stand ready with the extinguisher if necessary.

Sounds like a plan. Takes seconds. Hell, I don’t even have to grab the extinguisher. Just use those taps in the sink. (The bath taps are more cumbersome to activate, and I’d have to flail shower curtains out of the way. Too fiddly. Sink is the top item on the menu.)

Why dismiss the idea of staying in the bedroom and going to the window? Opening the curtains and the blinds would take too long. The windows operate on a catch that has to pass through several stages before opening wide enough for me to throw the smoking ruin down to the gravel below.

No. Staying in the room, with a rising body of smoke, is not an option. No instant ventilation. Instinct tells me I have a minute to win it. And I do that by leaving the building. I don’t see flames, but maybe something is brewing up. Best motor on.

Going to the bathroom…well, pouring water on the article will temporarily throw up more clouds of smoke. And this isn’t dainty woodsmoke. It’s smoke from burning plastic and melted metal.

I decide my best bet is to scoot down the stairs and leave the building, dumping this smoking article in the garden. So I take that option. I do this with a wary eye on the smoking mass. If flames lick from it, I’m dropping that whole mess on a convenient spot and heading for the second fire extinguisher.

The smoke alarm stops. That’s a good sign. I note it.

No flames. And no alarm sounds. I’m down the stairs. Can I leave through the front door? No. The smoking mass is in my right hand and my keys are in my right pocket. Luck of the draw. The blanket was plugged in on the right, and my right hand went for that plug.

I keep one door free of keys, and it’s the front door. Partly, the front door is harder to open than the back door is. Also, there are cases of people accessing the front door keyhole from the letterbox. The world is full of sneaky types.

Now I am working doors with my left hand, following the clear path into the kitchen. Nothing close to set fire to, as I make my way along. I reach another decision-point. Dump the smoking machine into the kitchen sink and hit the taps.

   Again, plenty of smoke would roil up as I did that. If flames erupt now, I’ll hurl the mess into the sink and grab that second extinguisher.

I’ll say a quick word about fire extinguishers. Let’s talk about Vin Diesel. He’s in a movie called THE LAST WITCH HUNTER. About 45 minutes in, one character takes a handheld fire extinguisher to a raging inferno and does nothing to dampen that inferno.

The lesson about small fire extinguishers is that they buy time (or space) to escape. They don’t fight fires. Fire engines do that. Not fire extinguishers. Massive big trucks, tapping into the local water. Not fire extinguishers.

I know that the extinguishers are there to buy me time to slide by a hotspot. Make it bearable for a second or two. Long enough to race by. And that’s it.

So I’m not in this rush to grab the extinguishers. I know where they are, and I know what limited help they can provide. Right now, I am okay. Assessing the situation on the move.

I bypass the sink and get into the back hall. Now I reach the back door. This is locked, with the key in the lock for emergencies. Like, oh, trying to get out of the door in case of a fire. No need to hunt for keys. It’s a basic part of a plan to help you escape from a burning building. Keys in the lock.

And it is a point designed to help someone with dementia escape, too. My mother knows the keys are in that back door.

Almost out. My free hand reaches for the keys. I unlock and open the door. Out I go into the rainy night. I drop the smoking mess. Then I keep assessing the situation.

You never go back into a burning building.

However, I can’t hear ANY of the many smoke and CO alarms. From the burning room to the exit, I encounter six alarms. They are all silent now.

I’m going back in, looking for flames. No. I didn’t set anything on fire in the kitchen. Grabbing a jug of water, I step outside and drench the dead machine, calling out to my mother to determine her whereabouts. She’s shut in the main room downstairs, smoke-free, a little rattled, but safe.

Speed is not her strength. Neither is strength. In the time it took me to leave, ditch the dead blanket, and return for water to drench it, she’d never have made it to the exit. Good job, too. I couldn’t have her in my way, as I unlocked the door, with the smoking blanket dangling at my feet.

As a dementia carer, I always wear shoes in case there’s an emergency that calls for me to run outside at a moment’s notice.

Details. I make sure she is okay, in a smoke-free zone. Then I work my way back upstairs, listening for alarms. No, we’re good. I hold my breath, enter the bedroom, and draw the curtains. This takes eternity. I draw the blinds. A geological era passes as this happens.

   Then I open the windows. Vampires die of old age, waiting for me to finish that task. I lean out of the window, as smoke is sucked into the night. Then I leave that to clear, seeing no flames, no smoke starting from secondary sources, and I quickly check the damage.

Rooms aired. Front door unlocked and open. Back door airing the house, too. Windows wide. A cup of tea, to dull the shock of it all for her. We get through it. Windows and doors close. We talk it over. I’m there to help her, and she did the right thing in shouting a warning.

The damage?

Scorched duvets. The material is flame-resistant, and crumbles away instead of raging in an inferno. She can’t sleep in that room. It has to be cleaned. She sleeps downstairs. It’s easy to evacuate from downstairs. But I have a plan for escaping from upstairs if the stairway is blocked.

Didn’t have to use it.

Late in bed at night I think over what happened, and my choices. It’s only then that I feel a dose of fear. At the time, I just got on with the job. Here’s a fire. Electrical. Kill the power. Get her to evacuate. Now make decisions about leaving.

   Do I go, or do I go and take this thing with me? Either way, I’m out of here inside 60 seconds. And I was outside inside a minute, according to plan. That’s always the plan. Fire? You’re on the street, a minute later.

As a dementia carer, my phone is in a pouch at my hip. Not once did I waste time dialling 999 for the fire brigade. I could’ve reached the phone with my free hand, no problem. But you only call for help using the phone if the fire has cut you off inside the building, with no clear means of escape.

   The priority is to get out. Try holding your breath AND talking on the phone at the same time. Good luck.

   I was too busy using my one-minute evacuation clock to get myself gone.

Would I have changed what I did, if I had my time over again? I might have gone to the bathroom, dropped the blanket into the toilet, and flushed. But that might’ve caused other problems.

Instantly seeing the smoke, I killed that switch and took the current away. Then the plug acted as an excellent handle for lifting up the smoking tangle. I stood outside in a minute, and checked my mother was okay. We hadn’t suffered smoke inhalation. My eyes never even watered. It all happened so fast. Because it was so fast.

Was it scary? After, yes. Never had a fire before. The alarms have never gone off in anger before. And only one sounded, this time. Briefly. Smoke woke it from slumber.

I test the alarms every week. She covers her ears when I do that. And I have a box of all the different batteries, to fit those things when the power dies down.

It was a risk, taking the smoking object with me. But leaving it in place…would’ve risked flames. I had a fire extinguisher if needed. And a bathroom sink, if needed. Seconds later, a front door if needed. And seconds later, a fire extinguisher if needed.

   Seconds later, a kitchen sink if needed. And seconds later, a toilet sink if needed, right at the back door. With plenty of fully-functioning alarms along the way, to keep me informed.

   Best of all, there was the key in the back door, for that very purpose of escape from a fire. Something I could find in the dark. I did exactly that. Then I was out onto the concrete.

I’ve often wondered how I’d handle things, in a fire. If you’d said I’d take the burning object with me, I’d doubt you. Each incident is different. If you’d said I wouldn’t be scared, I’d doubt you. Well, I was scared later. I delayed the fear until it was an epilogue.

Epilogue? I cleaned the bedroom next day, after another massive airing, going around and wiping all the glass surfaces in case invisible soot clasped the pictures hanging up.

How did I do? And what of the dead machine? Well, I made it this far, to tell you my tale. I did okay, considering. It was important not to panic, and to avoid spreading panic to a woman with dementia. She could've been mightily obstructive if she’d lost the plot. But she did very well under the circumstances.

   As for that machine…

   I’d boiled eggs. Light, in the kitchen. My mother went upstairs. Light in the hall. She was in the bedroom. Light there. On my trip from scene of the fire to the exit, I encountered darkness once, in the back hall. Light from the kitchen flooded the back hall, so I had enough light to see by.

   But at that door leading out, I knew exactly where the key lay, down in the shadows. That was always part of my plan. A flexible plan of escape. You should have one.

   I always had choices. Lucky.

Install fire alarms and CO detectors. Check them weekly. Keep a stock of replacement batteries handy. You’ll be lucky, too.

   Plan to leave the building inside a minute, once fire is detected. Leave, and get everyone out.

   Never stay to fight a fire with a handheld extinguisher. Even if you find yourself using an extinguisher, make sure the electrical switch is off in the event of an electrical fire. Kill the current, before it kills you.

   I don’t recommend taking the source of the smoke with you. Looking back on that, I might have gone for the old toilet bowl instead. Flush flush.

   Keep a telephone on you at all times. Only use it to report fire inside a building if you have no immediate way out. The best place to report a fire is outside, away from the smoke and flames.

   Don’t breathe smoke. Stay low. I could go on. But I won’t. No more electric blankets. One was enough. And it wasn’t even full-size. It failed within ten minutes of activation. The model wasn’t new, and had seen previous use. It looked okay when I brought it out for winter warming. Always look at the wiring.

   Yes, I looked. And no, that didn’t help me after a few weeks. The heating pad was at the end of its life. Luckily, we weren’t at the end of our lives.

   Detect the problem. Assess the situation. (You have, at most, five seconds in which to do that.) Remain calm. Act. Get out. Check on everyone. If you have to call the emergency services, do so from a place of safety.

Did I call anyone, after? We hadn’t suffered smoke poisoning, and a thorough check indicated the danger was over. I made sure to talk to my mother, to assess her medical state. Rattled, I’d say. Lesson learned? I’ll be more organised, for next time.