ADVERTISEMENTWhen Amanda Ludwiski heard the upstairs smoke alarm, her fi rst
thought was, “That has to be a mistake.” It was a Friday morning, and
the mother of two was buzzing around the kitchen of her Indiana home,
managing breakfast and preparing for her son’s fi rst birthday party.
“I couldn’t see or smell anything that would indicate a fi re,” says
Ludwiski. “But with two young children, I wasn’t going to take any
chances. I grabbed the kids and headed straight for the front door.”
She soon realized there was no mistake. Her home was on fi re. It
started, Ludwiski later learned, when a loose electrical connection
in a dining room wall sparked the blaze. Smoke, sealed inside the
walls, had wafted up and out a vent on the home’s second fl oor,
triggering the alarm.
“That’s why we couldn’t smell it, even though we were right
there,” says Ludwiski. “That smoke alarm was the only reason we
were aware there was a fi re.”
Red Cross volunteers installed that smoke alarm just months
earlier, at no cost to the Ludwiskis.
Many people equate the Red Cross with
large-scale natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes and
fl oods. But the vast majority of the 60,000-plus disasters it
responds to each year are home fi res. With that in mind, and
knowingthat workingsmokealarmscancut the risk of death by
half,in 2014 theRedCrosslauncheditsHome Fire Campaign,
whichhassavedmorethan 700 lives,largely through the
campaign’s Sound the Alarm smoke alarm installation and
home safety visits.
“Experts agree that people may have as little as two minutes to
escape a burning home before it’s too late,” says Gail McGovern,
President and CEO of the American Red Cross. “That’s why we
raise awareness year-round about home fi re safety.”
To fulfill its lifesaving mission, the Red Cross relies not just
on volunteers and community partners, but also on generous
corporate donors such as this year’s national partners, Delta Air
Lines and Lowe’s.
For more on how you can help, visit SoundTheAlarm.org or
contact your local Red Cross chapter. No experience is necessary
because the Red Cross trains volunteer teams before they head
out to visit homes.
“It’s truly a meaningful team-building activity to give back in the
community and to help save lives,” says McGovern.
That’s something Ludwiski has experienced fi rsthand. “After
our fi re, Red Cross volunteers came to check in on us,” she says.
“They’re doing such good work. To be able to see how that helps
people—I think it was pretty heartwarming for them.”2 MillionSmokeAlarms
7 00 Lives Saved
Zero Cost to Families
The American Red Cross helps protect the
most vulnerable from home fires and needs
you to Sound the Alarm. Save a Life.
The American Red Cross thanks its Sound the Alarm partners:
The Ludwiski family was saved by a smoke alarm provided by the American Red Cross.