Chantal Davison gets a thumbs up from London Fire Department mascot Sparky as she displays her Ontario Fire Marshal’s Fire Safety Action Award and London Fire Department’s Fire Safety Recognition Award on Wednesday.
It was a morning that Chantal Davison should have been waking up to her alarm clock. Instead, the London teen was awoken by the shrill cry of the household fire alarm.
But instead of panicking, Davison knew what to do from lessons learned years earlier through the elementary school safety program at the YMCA Childrens’ Safety Village of London Area.
Despite being really nervous when smoke billowed in her face as she opened her bedroom door, Davison knew to get down on her hands and knees, crawled out the front door and went to a prearranged spot in the front yard.
In fact all her family knew what to do having gone over an escape plan — an idea she had brought home with her from the safety village.
“What she did was outstanding,” said Jason Poole, Public Fire and Life Safety Educator with the -London Fire Department.
He said because Davison took home what she had learned at the safety village and shared it with her family, they all were educated on what to do in case of a fire.
For that and her quick thinking on the morning of the fire, Poole nominated Davison for the Ontario Fire Marshal’s Fire Safety Action Award, which she received earlier this week. She was also presented with the London Fire Department’s Fire Safety Recognition Award at a small ceremony on Wednesday (June 28).
Happy that others can learn from her experience, Davison said the best advice she can give is not to get nervous. “ If you start hyperventilating and shaking and getting really scared, it doesn’t help.” When you get out she adds, “Go to a spot not in your back yard, but in the front yard where everyone can see you.”
