There are so many reasons why someone might want to sleep with their bedroom door open; a fear of the dark, a worry of being shut in, or maybe they even keep it open to let their pets wander in and out throughout the night.
As a child, I’d always sleep with my door open and the landing light on, just so I wouldn’t be in complete darkness – and all of my younger relatives did exactly the same.
But now, parents are being warned not to let their children sleep with the door open, even a little bit, and for a very good reason.
Firefighters have issued an important warning to people, telling them to keep their bedroom doors closed at night, in hope it could save lives.
In a message posted to Facebook, an emergency responder from the Cold Spring Harbor Fire Department showed parents just how important closing your child’s bedroom door is.
Posting two pictures side-by-side, the firefighter showed what both the outside and inside of a closed door looked like after a fire.
Take a look below:
The firefighter explained how the two pictures each show a door; while the front of the door has been severely damaged by the fire, the other side has not, and has instead protected the bedroom and its contents.
The post read:
If this were an occupied bedroom the closed door could have saved a life.
The unnamed firefighter, who’s a parent themselves, explained in the post how they do a lot of fire prevention in schools and always try to stress the importance of closing bedroom doors.
The post explains:
As a parent it’s hard to convince little kids to sleep with the door closed, they always want it open just a little.
I do a lot of fire prevention at schools, so one thing I try and stress to the kids is, how important it is to sleep with the doors closed.
The post quickly went viral, having received 1, 800 likes and more than 5, 900 shares at the time of writing (February 8).
Many people commented they were surprised to learn of the benefits of having a closed door, referring to the information as ‘unrecognised’ but ‘important’.
The fire department also emphasised smoke detectors should be installed in all common areas in the house – including bedrooms.
Hopefully the viral post will encourage people to follow the firefighter’s advice, and will have a positive impact.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).