Boardman hands out detectors for deaf

By Ashley Luthern

aluthern@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

Joseph Mullarkey, like all students in Boardman schools who qualified based on need, was offered a free smoke detector from the Boardman Fire Department.

The smoke detector was given to the second- grader, but his mother, Crystal Mullarkey, wasn’t sure how to install it or the specialty smoke detector she had purchased earlier.

Crystal is deaf and often has friends who are deaf stay in their Terrace Drive home, so to protect them, she acquired a hearing-impaired smoke detector that emits a bright strobe light and sound.

On Thursday afternoon, Fire Chief George Brown, Boardman Lions Club president Terry Shears and club member Joni Blase presented Crystal with a second hearing-impaired smoke detector and offered assistance in installing all three detectors.

“Usually, the strobe light carries into rooms because they’re so bright. Everyone should have a smoke detector on every living floor and especially outside of bedrooms,” Brown said.

Shears said the Lions Club purchased four hearing-impaired smoke detectors to donate to the fire department to help township families.

“As the need comes up, we’ll help where we can,” Shears said.

The chief said the effort is part of the department’s “No Child Sleeps Unprotected” that has the goal of making sure every child in Boardman has a working smoke detector in his or her home. In December, Lowe’s donated 500 smoke detectors to the program, and many service groups such as Lions have donated, as well.

The importance of smoke detectors cannot be overstated, especially in light of recent fatal fires in East Liverpool and Warren, Brown said.

“Things can be rebuilt, but lives lost cannot be saved,” he said.