A rise in the number of children in the borough admitted to hospital with burns resulted in a health and safety awareness day – complete with fire demonstrations.
Friday’s Stay Safe, Be Healthy event at Barking Town Square was aimed at helping the public understand the potential dangers at home and on the road and included firefighters demonstrating using the “jaws of life” and tackling explosive chip pan fires.
It came off the back of figures from the council’s children’s services department that found 35 per cent of children from the borough who were admitted to hospital last year had suffered burns or burn-related injuries.
Prevention
Joy Cotts, operational lead of children’s universal and targeted services at Barking and Dagenham Council, said the figures were likely to be the result of a young population and confined living quarters.
She added: “This event is for prevention rather than cure. If we all work together towards the preventative model it will be more effective.”
Co-organiser Rahat Ismail said: “We wanted to bring lots of services together to let vulnerable families in particular know about how to stay safe and be healthy.”
Dagenham fire station watch manager and road safety lead, Chris Layton, told the Post that showing the public how crews deal with a person trapped in a vehicle after a collision would help them become more vigilant.
He added fire crews were “trying to prevent more accidents happening”.
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