Ladies did you know that June is home safety month and you're

Well, what do I do?

Well, guess what?

We have a guest coming on today that is going to teach you some amazing

And they will love the field trip idea.

Stay tuned.

Welcome to the American Mothers: Mom to Mom Podcast.

The show that lifts, encourages, supports, and educates mothers to do their best in

Join us as we talk to and answer questions from mothers nationwide about the

We are so pleased to introduce Jake Larsen who's been with the Pleasant

He has accomplished many things throughout his career.

He became a nationally certified paramedic, earned his bachelor

He has worked his way through the ranks of Lieutenant, and captain is

He enjoys camping, hunting, and anything that has to do with the outdoors.

He has a beautiful wife and a four year old little girl.

And I'm sure you'd like to brag on her.

Jake.

Thanks for being with us today.

You want to tell us a little bit about her?

We love hearing stories from dads.

I've got a funny story that I actually had to talk to my wife a little bit about it.

There's so many stories with the age group she's in right now.

She's super talkative and she's got quite the personality.

So I'm like, what can I tell them?

And she brought up one of the, instances we had with her.

She had actually talked about her boyfriend.

And she started talking about a guy named T.

So my wife proceeded to ask her.

Who's T?

Cause we don't know anybody by the name of T.

So she starts to explain that this T individual goes on fire calls.

And then he goes on medical calls and when he goes on the fires, he puts them out.

So she started to describe this T and she thought it was kind of funny because

dad, me and she was super excited to tell mom about T and who he was and

So she described my job exactly how she sees it, which is kind of funny.

She sees dad going to fire calls and I come home and talk to her about it.

It's funny, the little things that they grab out of the job and how

So I hit her up last night and I said, Hey, do you still have a boyfriend?

And she says, yeah.

And I said, who is it?

And she says, T and I said, who is T?

And she's like, you dad.

I became her boyfriend.

I guess.

That's kind of fun for a few years.

Dad's are the heroes.

Yeah, so she's fun.

She's enjoyable to be around.

I love that you go and talk to her about it.

Yeah.

So she's aware of what you do.

With the fire service we're gone a lot, especially when I was a captain.

I worked at 48/ 96, so I worked two days on and four days off.

And oftentimes on those four days, I'm actually getting

I was gone a lot.

And so I helped her understand why so that we're there to help people, and

So it helped with that to help her understand why I was gone.

In an office, you can usually get along without a member of the team, but in

Yeah.

Yeah.

We, we have a hard time responding to calls when we lose a couple of them.

So we have people come in on overtime and stuff like that

we certainly appreciate your service and all those throughout

We'd be in a sad place without your service.

The role of the fire Marshall is a lot to do with public information.

Is that right?

Correct.

Yeah.

As well as enforcing the safety regulations.

Yep.

A lot of that and education to the public as well on fire stuff and how we can

So all mothers and families want to keep their families safe.

Can you tell us and explain what are some of the common safety issues in

A lot of the issues that we see when we go out, a lot of medical

So that I think is the top.

Whether it be, they just fall and they need help up.

That's what we get called to the most.

A lot of that has to do with housekeeping, things like that.

Whether your home's got railing, whether the carpet's in good working order because

That's the stuff we're seeing.

So keeping your housekeeping up.

I know it's hard with kids and stuff like that, but you get toys and things

And then next thing you know, you're at the bottom calling us for help.

You find a lot of the elderly, when they're getting into the tub and things

A lot of that can be prevented just by putting in hand rails and things like

So, there's a few things that cause us to be called, but I would say

A lot of homes are now using occasional rugs or throw rugs.

Yeah.

So is that an issue also, if they don't have non-skid stuff?

Yeah.

And they'll get bunched up and next thing you know, you're tripping over them.

So that's something that you want to be aware of.

If you've got somebody that has a hard time moving or something like that.

Maybe get rid of those rugs at that point.

And then when they're able to move again, because you'll have people that go

If you have a rug or something, that's in the way, maybe that's something

Obviously there's other things that, that come and go.

But falls is probably the number one right now.

You get into fires, you get into carbon monoxide, that kind of stuff.

I know we've been on a couple calls where people are doing construction

That's something that people don't pay attention to as well as they're just down

We've been on a call recently where that happened.

And so it's just things that people don't necessarily pay attention to.

They're used to run on the power saw, but outside, right?

So they get inside and not realize it and fill up home full of CO.

And then you've got people getting sick or, you can die from that really fast.

My husband still takes his saws outside.

Yeah.

Or he has the windows open so there's some good cross ventilation there.

Would that be helpful if they would at least do that?

Yep.

And that's the biggest thing.

As long as the contractor or whoever's doing it, if you take those steps

I don't know if you want me to go through a couple more things.

So choking is a big one.

We get called on choking quite a bit.

It's kind of across the board with age.

We've gotten people middle-aged that they call us for choking, to

Most of the time people are able to dislodge it by the time we get there.

Going through training, getting with your local fire department and going

maneuver or whatever it might be to get yourself up to where if it

That's something that we see quite often.

We get there and it's dislodged.

That's awesome.

That's what we're looking for.

Right.

We don't want them to be choking the whole time while we're trying to get there.

But it does happen and we've been on a few calls where we've had to

The other one that has to do with choking is poisoning.

We get a lot of little kids getting in their parents' medicine

Those happen quite often.

Simple fixes with those is just keeping your medications, where

I know of kids are super Curious.

And so they'll do anything they can to get up into the medicine cabinet.

They'll climb, they'll stack things.

They'll do what they can.

And so we have to be super cognizant of that.

And then not so much around here, but I know in other places such as St.

George or Las Vegas, places like that with pools, drowning's a big one.

I know in Pleasant Grove, we've been on a couple and we don't have a ton of

That's a big one that we need to make sure that the, the pool area is secure

go in there and they're curious, like I said, they just want to go see what's

Sounds fun, especially on those hot days.

Another one, speaking with drowning.

Yeah, you don't mind.

Bathtub drowning, I always think about that and tubs of water outside.

Or where the summertime's coming and the plastic pools are left out.

The people don't want to dump them out and fill them up every day.

Exactly.

Everybody's trying to save a little water here and there, what they can.

So, yeah, it's definitely something that we need to keep our eyes out on.

Especially in the bathtubs.

Hopefully we're not leaving our little ones in the bathtub, but

And I think that's where we can prevent some of that

Another one that you don't see a ton of it, but we do see

My little girl actually burned her finger yesterday.

We're making a breakfast for dinner and have the waffle maker out.

And she's like, what's this dad?

And she went to touch it to lift up the lid.

Well, she didn't grab the handle.

She grabbed the little metal portion of it and she got her finger pretty good.

That's something that we try and teach her is she always wants to help.

She's always willing to jump in and want to cook.

But, we always tell her, stay away from the stove and stay away from this.

And she gets upset cause she wants to be in there.

And I think she learned a lesson yesterday and hopefully with

So she never got a big burn, but that first burn, she knows now that that's hot

So sometimes it's hard, but then sometimes they have to learn the

So those are, those are probably one of the biggest ones that we

A lot of times it depends on the the season cause a lot of times

You get a lot of kids, you get a lot of people out riding bikes, you get

So we start to see an increase in car versus bicycle, that kind of stuff.

So, best thing to do is teach your kids, those cars aren't

What about dehydration during the summer months?

Are you called in on that, very much?

We do see that once in a while.

We cover the canyon, a small canyon up here in Pleasant Grove.

We get people hiking up to the waterfall and then get

And next thing you know, they haven't taken the water that

And we have been on quite a few of those where they get a little disoriented

Search and rescue will go and help with that.

Once they bring them down to the ambulance at the staging area, we'll assess them,

Well, Jake, we need to take a little break for commercial right now.

We look forward to talking to you after the break.

Thank you.

Sounds good.

Thanks.

When the 2006 National Young Mother of the Year and former National

she replied, "There is such strength and inspiration found in this organization's

Each day, I am amazed by the true selflessness of the women

You embody all the admirable qualities for which the first

It is an honor and privilege to serve in an organization

And we are back.

We have been talking to Jake Larsen and he is the Fire Marshall and Battalion

I've heard a little bit about having a 72 hour kit, but you on

Tell me why.

So, a 72 hour kit is great.

It just doesn't quite give us enough time.

Cause if we have a major incident here in Utah, most likely it's

So all of the agencies around here, different fire departments

Our goal is to get as much of our personnel back to the fire station, to be

So it may take two to three days cause a lot of our guys

So you think about it back when Pleasant Grove was a volunteer fire department,

So we had those response times because we were able to respond from home and

Now we're a full-time department.

They can live anywhere.

So we come and work a 48 hour shift and then go home.

So when that emergency happens, we've only got six guys on duty at one time.

So they can only do so much.

You can imagine what the chaos is going to be if it's a giant earthquake.

So there's going to be a lot of stuff that's going to have to come

So that's why we recommend having that 96 hour kit is giving yourself time to

Something you mentioned also on the website is it applies to people

As I've been looking over your 11 month program.

Yeah.

And the thing that I liked it says put a little money away in small bills every

There's so many good tips on this.

Go ahead and explain a little bit more about it, but I just learned

I'm going to start applying that to my family.

Yeah.

Our chief that just recently retired about a year ago.

His name was chief Thomas.

He's the one that took this whole 96 hour kit and started going through and

He was big into being prepared and making sure that other people

Obviously it costs money and that's why Chief eventually set this up is so that

bit of money . We want to be as ready as we can soon, but this is allows us to

And he set that up so that you've got your water storage, your Water purification

Right.

Water and food what's going to keep us going.

He's definitely set that up to be very user-friendly and make sure

Is that your biggest recommendation then for people to prepare for

and be ready to be able to provide for their family, probably including

Exactly.

Yeah.

I've got the website up.

If you go into that step eight, it talks about first aid kits and things

This is all kind of stuff that it's super simple, but it'll get you through a bind.

A lot of the stuff they've put in there is like anti-inflammatory like

If you end up breaking something and you need to split something for a day or two,

So that's stuff that as a fire department, we teach a couple of classes.

We teach CPR, we teach stop the bleed.

We teach basics first aid as far as splinting and stuff like that.

If the community wants to come and take a class, they just need to get with

We do a lot of station tours here in Pleasant Grove.

And a lot of times it's with scouting groups and things like

But we'll come in and they'll ask questions and we're able to help them,

When we do a station tour, we always try and implement some

Oftentimes we'll go to schools and we'll do the same thing.

We'll talk about the cool apparatus cause that's what most of the kids want to

They want to see the lights.

But we also try and implement a little bit of fire safety with it and what we do

Now tell us what the website is and we'll also link it in the show notes.

So it's.

P L grove.org.

If you just want to search it in Google, you can do that and search

If you're outside the state, you may just have to type in the PL grove.org.

And then there's a fire tab.

You click on the fire tab and then it'll bring you to a link with a

Awesome.

Now, what are your recommendations as far as parents helping their kids prepare

What is the best advice you can teach us about that.

That's a tough one because different age groups are gonna

And we find that often when we bring tours in.

There's age groups that start to understand what 9-1-1 is and

And then you've got your younger groups they don't care.

They just want to see everything that's going on at the firehouse.

So it's really hard to specifically say how I would teach them.

Probably the biggest thing is get them out to the firehouses

And then they start to understand that, Hey, if I call 9 1 1,, it's going to

And we try and teach those kids that, that when you're calling 9-1-1,

And so it kind of sinks in with them.

If I call these guys are leaving and we try and show them that if we're outside

call, because he called 9 1 1, there could be somebody else in need of an

So someone else has to get called.

And so it often makes them think.

I think getting them out to the firehouse and letting the fire guys talk to them.

I think that's an awesome way to prepare your kids and show them exactly

That means needing an officer, they can go visit with the officers

. That way they see it.

Oftentimes they'll see it on cartoons.

Cause my little girl watches stuff with Paw Patrol.

It's very educational, but it also helps them to go see that, that

So maybe a good idea for mothers during the summer is schedule a field

families and take your kids to the fire department and learn a few

Okay.

If we have an emergency here is what we do.

Yeah.

And a lot of times when we do those tours, we'll go through with the

We'll talk about matches.

We'll talk about things that we see like in the home that maybe

And, We talk about oftentimes changing the batteries in our smoke alarms.

We'll ask the kids and the kids.

They'll be honest with us.

They'll be like, my mom and dad never do that.

Or we'll ask them about wearing their seatbelts in the car and they'll rat

kid's not in a seatbelt or the mom or the dad's not in a seatbelt and causes

And so we try and turn it on the parents a little bit, not to be mean,

That kind of thing.

And it makes them start to think when they hear the stories of things that we go on

Cause we see a lot of stuff we don't like to see and it's not fun.

And to be able to prevent that, it makes it a lot easier on us when we show up

It's like, okay, you're good.

Perfect.

We're gonna move on to the next one and make sure that they're okay.

That makes my day when we go on car accidents and there's no injury.

Because that's ultimately what we're trying to prevent is that

So that's something that's awesome.

You take them to the firehouse and hopefully that the firehouse you

And more than likely, they're going to have something that they're

We'll do that with fire in your house too, as well.

We'll talk about having a place where you go and actually meet.

If you have a fire in your home, once you get the evacuation.

Cause a lot of times people don't have evacuation plans in their

Go over evacuation.

Where do you meet once you're outside the house?

Oftentimes we tell them meet at the mailbox or the neighbor's

That way when we show up, we can ask them, Hey, who owns this home?

They can come up and talk to us and say, Hey, all of our family is out.

I've got them right here.

Now we're going to go in and put the fire out.

We're not going to worry about trying to find somebody cause that's our

So that's what we're looking for.

That's a really good plan.

And I remember when my kids were younger and they would do fire safety

But now that my kids are older, we haven't talked about it for awhile.

So I think this is a good refresher for me and probably for everybody else.

This is something that's important so that you can have safety in your home and your

Or you and your spouse wherever you are in the mothering process, right?

For sure.

Wonderful.

Deanne, do you have any more questions?

No.

I just really appreciate the time you spent with us Jake today

Your job to help us stay safe.

We have a job to not make you work so hard.

We don't mind visiting.

So we'll visit all day long as long as it's not an emergency.

Right.

That's good.

Well, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us today, Jake,

the Mom to Mom Podcast, and thank you for sharing with us how we can

We appreciate it.

You're welcome.

Thanks for having me.

My name is Chelsea Strand and I am the Mother of the Year

I feel like, I do have high expectations for myself of what things are gonna

And we're all going to be this happy little family.

And I think it just goes to show too, that life is very uncertain and we can

We want to challenge ourselves to be better each and every day, but that's

And that it's not a personal thing.

I mean, I think we've all been there to think like, oh, like right before

My two year old threw her food on the floor, you know?

And it's just like, that's okay.

That doesn't mean that I'm a bad parent or I did something wrong.

You're just going to have some of that.

And so I guess to be, to be kind and humble, because there are days where

you know, what's wrong with us, that we get these results, but you know,

June is home safety month, but every month is important to

There are several websites that provide information and checklists.

One of the most important activities you can do with your family,

Practice these with your children, just like they practice their fire

And what if there's an emergency in your area, an earthquake,

Have you talked about how you will connect?

Maybe you can consider asking someone outside of your area or maybe even

That way they can call them and let them know where they are and how they are.

So when you connect with this friend, she can let you know that your family

Celebrate home safety month by doing one of these things with your family.

It's all about safety and being together and taking care of one another.

Next week, we have Dr.

Renae Reinardy, who is a licensed psychologist and director of the

And she's going to talk to us about managing emotions and what do we do with

Now in the wake of COVID, how do we handle all these increased emotions.

Is it okay to talk to people when you're feeling strong emotions stay tuned.

We have these answers and more next week with Dr.

Renae Reinardy.

The 2021 Mother of the Year from the District of Columbia, Amber Golden shared

I was surprised to learn the truth of this for my own family.

I have found the great value and satisfaction and being a stay-at-home,

While children's needs, obviously change as they develop, the real-time

adulthood demanded made accessibility to a trusted loving ear and guidance essential

Thanks so much for listening to today's show.

If you like what you've heard, subscribe so you can get your weekly

We understand that being a mother can be overwhelming, but we hope

We invite you to share this episode with a friend who might also enjoy the message.

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We look forward to visiting with you one mom to another next week.

Until then, just do your best at mothering, and remember you're not alone.

You've got an army of mothers all around you cheering you on.