While I can’t point to one at the moment, I think you will find anecdotal reports in news accounts where someone on fire remembered to STOP, DROP, and ROLL.  I am not in a position to know if anyone has been able to do a statistically valid study of the impact of that training on victim response.

It is fine to tell on-lookers that they are authorized to intervene and help with that drop and roll process, but I would never advocate reducing the emphasis in the impacted individual doing it.  After all, one could easily be alone during the emergency.  As with other forms of emergency preparedness, the purpose is to increase the chances that the impacted individual will remember in the midst of the high stress situation by going over the process in advance, and if possible, multiple times.

Peter Zavon, CIH
Penfield, NY

PZAVON**At_Symbol_Here**Rochester.rr.com

CHEM SAFETY TRAINERS:

            We’ve all been teaching & learning  STOP! DROP! ROLL! for years and there are lots of training materials & images available to work with. My current favorite (for eye-catching & cute) is one with a Dalmatian hound. (List won’t let me attach pictures.)

I recently realized this instruction is more useful to those nearby than to the person on fire. It seems unlikely a victim with clothing on fire will remember anything (his/her clothing is on fire!!), but the nearest workers/students have a real chance to respond. Is there any research on whether all this training has actually paid off in victim response?

“STOP your co-worker! DROP your colleague! ROLL your classmate!” isn’t as catchy, so I’m looking for images that show another person stopping, dropping & rolling the victim. A quick search  returned only one, from India. If you have (or are aware of) others, please let me know.

Sheila M. Kennedy, C.H.O.

Safety Coordinator | Teaching Laboratories

Chemistry & Biochemistry |University of California, San Diego

9500 Gilman Dr. | La Jolla, CA  92093-0303

(858) 534 – 0221 | MC 0303 | YORK HALL 3150

s1kennedy**At_Symbol_Here**ucsd.edu | Student Lab Safety, CHEM Teaching Labs

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