Shane Ferguson will never forget the night in 1998 when he responded to a Winnipeg house fire. When the rescue team arrived, they found smoke billowing from a top-floor window and a man yelling that his daughter was still inside. Ferguson entered the house and saw the little girl's foot sticking out from under the bed, where she had been hiding. She died a couple of days later. "When I got home that morning and saw my two daughters, I couldn't hug them tight enough." Ferguson has since made it his mission to teach children not to hide if there's a fire. "I really wanted to get that message out. Kids have fire drills at school and they all know what to do, but you're lucky if one child in 30 has ever practised anything at home." His non-profit organization, Staying Alive, has designed a website (stayingalive.ca) and an animated game called The Great Escape, which shows kids how to get out of a fire safely. The game was later put onto a CD along with curriculum units that teachers can use in the classroom. At last count, he'd sent out more than 40,000 free copies in Canada. Thousands more have been distributed abroad - to Ferguson's surprise, it's being used in Mexico, Europe, Asia, Australia and every state in the US. Ferguson, a 15-year firefighter who's trained in public education, is a persuasive guy who's brought many talented friends on board. "I've been very fortunate to have good people around me who really believed in what I was doing." One of his firefighter buddies, a former disc jockey "who does about 110 different voices" created the game's narrator, a British nanny named Mrs. Aboutfire. The website and CD also include voiceovers by actor Tom Jackson, rock legend Randy Bachman, drummer Mitch Dorge of the Crash Test Dummies and Winnipeg mayor Sam Katz. "My goal is to get the program into every elementary school and fire department across Canada at no cost," Ferguson says. He's been approached by commercial interests looking to cash in, but he's not interested. "I just hope that it will save a life somewhere, and I honestly believe that it has." Chosen charity: The Firefighters' Burn Fund Inc. |
