CLARKSBURG, W. Va. — By providing functioning smoke detectors to elementary school students in Harrison County, a firefighter from Clarksburg is hoping to eliminate deaths that could have otherwise been preventable.
Cpt. Cindy Murphy, director of Safety and Training for the Clarksburg Fire Department, knew she had to do something after a January fire in Wallace that claimed the life of Hannah Crock, 7, as well as her brother Joshua Crock, 5, and father David Lee Crock, Jr., 34, when the smoke detectors in the home did not sound.
“It absolutely broke my heart that somebody I had talked to about smoke detectors was not able to make it out of their home,” Murphy said.
Hannah had been in a classroom where Murphy spoke about the importance of having properly functioning smoke detectors in the home, as well as other fire safety tips.
Murphy knew she had to do something more.
“I walk in and I do these classes where I talk to the kids about checking their smoke detector batteries and changing them out twice a year –when you change your clock, you change your battery– but I wasn’t doing anything to ensure that there actually was a working smoke detector available to them,” she said. “From that point, I said I just couldn’t do it this way anymore.”
After talking with her friends to figure out a way to make a difference, she approached Clarksburg Fire Chief Rick Scott with the idea of accepting donations to purchase 10-year smoke detectors and give them to Harrison County’s 850 first graders.
“The plan is I go and I do these classes and some places I’ve already been. I’m going to make sure that I walk back into that place and hand each of these first graders a ten-year smoke detector so that they don’t have to change the battery. All they need to do is test it to make sure it’s still in operation.”
Scott, as well as the community, was immediately on board and Operation “Not One More” was founded.
Murphy said the support has been rolling in from local business wanting to make donations, as well as citizens –she was approached by an anonymous individual who donated enough to provide 60 detectors.
To go the extra mile to make sure the detectors are installed, Murphy has been giving out her contact information for the students to use.
“If you are unable to put up the smoke detector yourself, please call me and I will talk to either one of my firefighters or someone out in the community in one of the volunteer fire departments that can come out and put this up,” she said. “What I’ve had the kids do is actually take cellphone pictures of themselves up with their smoke detectors and send them back to their teachers so we know that we’re actually making sure those detectors are getting up.”
Murphy was a recent guest on “The Mike Queen Show,” heard on the MetroNews-affiliated AJR News Network.
She said her goal was to provide all 850 first graders with the smoke detectors well before the end of the school years in order to prepare for the new class the following year.
Donations can be made in the form of a check written out to International Association of Firefighters Local 89 with “Smoke Detector Program” in the memo line. The checks can then be sent to the Clarksburg Fire Department at 465 West Main Street Clarksburg, WV 26301.