Monthly Archives: January 2012

Helping Persons With Disabilities to Safety

Disabilities often change rescue procedures. New statistics tell us that in the United and States and Canada, one in five persons has a disability. In light of the many storms and major emergency events in the last three years, volunteer responders as well as parents and caring individuals must know how to quickly procede in helping  them to safety and how to protect them after rescue.

This is the theme of my new book Quick Look for Volunteer Emergency Responders, A Guide for Aiding Persons with Disabilities that will be available on amazon.com soon.  Soon could mean two or three weeks if I’m lucky. This is my first brush with marketing a book myself, and it turned into a steep learning curve, and I wouldn’t have made the last image step without my son, Paul, who pulled me out of the last throes of despair. If you have never listed a book on Amazon, you would be amazed at the number of screens you must look at simultaneously or else print them out.  Finally (since my big screen computer is injured), I printed out 26 pages to use as work sheets.

On a lighter note, the big Houston storm today did not flood me. Good news note is I get my big Mac back tomorrow and a great guy is going to get the half a million files transfered to it. Yes !  Yes! Yes! Look for the sunshine of my smile down this way.

Emergency Rescue of Disabled a Priority

Emergency Responders Need Ways to Help Persons Who Are Disabled.

A disaster or emergency happens every day somewhere, and volunteers who work with persons with disabilities can now find aids to keeping those persons safe and calm. My new book Quick Look  For Volunteer Emergency Responders, A Guide for Aiding Persons With Disabilities will go on sale in two or three weeks from Amazon. com.  Handling the business end of publishing is new to me, so I had to take my time and do a LOT of learning. All my previous writing was handled  and promoted through a publisher, and this time I am the publisher called Ramps’nthings Press. This book is not a money maker for me, but will help a lot of people when it is used.  Mishandling of emergencies is not with malice; it is because no one knew what to do both during the emergency and afterwards.

Caregivers for persons who are homebound will find suggestions for keeping their charges safe, and anyone working with persons with disabilities will find tips on dealing with seizures.  Then there’s the matter of power outages, and we all know nothing is more scary than a completely black room or building, so there are suggestions on dealing with this. Maybe I’m prejudiced, but I think this book is fantastic and will sell fast.

Who makes accessible refrigerators?

Only one accessible refrigerator-top-freezer appeared after two full days of shopping. Kenmore makes an ADA approved one. It will be delivered this week after I have a formal funeral for my thirty year old GE with door ice maker that served me crushed or cubed.  I love ice!!!  The new Kenmore does not offer this feature, but has an ice maker within the freezer.  I kept repairing my old ice maker for years hoping that manufacturers would get the message, but, alas, we are the minority voice, and I understand that top freezers are not their best sellers. Any of you wheel chair users out there fallen into the bottom drawer freezers?

On other fronts, last Monday’s big Houston storm fried my external hard drive, modem, etc and got my internet as well as my entertainment center and one phone. In the transfer to my lap top for a while, I found some old, overlooked comments from some of you. I apologize, and will get back to you immediately.Experts say that lightning skips around, and now I believe it.  The hail also got my roof, so I am starting 2012 with new equipment.