Students gathered at Woodlawn Field on Friday, October 13, in attempt to break the world record for the number of people stopping, dropping and rolling at the same time as apart of the National Fire Prevention week. Assistant Director of the IU Insurance, Loss Control and Claims office, Mel Lane, says the record is currently 1,719 people.
“We’ve got 30 minutes to go and we’ve only got about 150 people, so I think we’re gonna be a little short,” Lane said. “It is to remind folks it's the last day of Fire Prevention Week, which is a national event, that’s what our real purpose is.”
The event had free t-shirts, free drinks, fire trucks, raffles and the Bloomington Fire Department's very own Sparky the Fire Dog.
IU Freshman Laysha Greene came to the event. She says this event is important because it teaches people how to stop, drop and roll.
“Fire safety is something that's very important and a lot of times in situations where danger is imminent we freze up and don't know what to do, but we've been taught how to stop, drop and roll,” Greene said. “So, if we ever do catch on fire, we’ll know what to do.”
Bloomington Fire Department’s training chief, Tania Draffrone says the more they get the word out about fire prevention, the better.
“Who doesn't wanna get a free t-shirt and just come out and take part of a world record attempt?” Draffrone said. “You’ll never know when you’re going to have to use it so it’s better to have that tool in your toolbox.”
The world record attempt will happen again during next year’s National Fire Prevention Week. To close the event, Mel Lane said at least IU had 200 more students attempting to break the stop, drop and roll record than Purdue.
Listen to the full audio story below.
[playlist tracklist="false" artists="false" images="false" ids="12977"]
