By: Christopher Quinn, Communications Volunteer

Brenda Stegall had the good luck to answer the knock on her door early Saturday, April 30, and the bad luck two days later to use what she was given during that visit.

Carrollton, Georgia, Fire Department workers, along with the American Red Cross of Georgia, were going door-to-door in Stegall’s neighborhood and giving out and installing free smoke alarms provided by the Red Cross during its most recent Sound the Alarm drive to install 50,000 smoke alarms in the homes of at-risk neighborhoods in towns across the country.

Those alarms began “singing a tune,” Monday morning shortly after Stegall had shooed her three grandchildren off to school and collapsed into her bed to get some sleep after a night shift of work.

“I had just dozed off,” she said, but the noise put her on her feet immediately. She ran down the hall where she had smelled something earlier but found nothing amiss after looking through her kitchen. However, this time, there was smoke coming out of her little laundry room where clothes in a dryer quickly burst into flames and spread.

Before making her way out, the smoke had grown so black she could not see. She wrapped a towel around her face to help her breathe. The fire ran her and her son, Carlos, who had been dozing in another room, out into the street.

Carrollton Fire Chief Allen English, whose team, alongside the Red Cross, placed more than 190 smoke alarms in the west Georgia town during the weekend drive, said, “It was a substantial fire and probably would have injured someone if something hadn’t woken her up.”

“I couldn’t do nothing but cry, it happened so fast,” Stegall said.

Every day, home fires kill seven people and injure 30 in the U.S. The Sound the Alarm campaign made sure Stegall and Carlos were not among those statistics for that Monday.

Since the Sound the Alarm campaign began in 2014, the American Red Cross has installed more than 2.5 million smoke alarms in more than a million homes to make families safer. Alarms cut the risk of injury in half. The efforts have saved an estimated 1,723 lives.

“It is part of our mission to make homes safer with free alarms and fire safety education,” said Dee Dixon, the Regional Chief Executive Officer of the American Red Cross of Georgia. “We have saved at least 240 lives here in Georgia from this campaign. Every second counts when there is a home fire and the Red Cross is committed to helping keep families safe from a devastating fire. We are so thankful that the alarm woke Ms. Stegall and her son up, so they were able to escape her home.”

Chief English said smoke alarms are an “absolutely critical” element of family home safety.

“You should never lay your head down for a night without having a detector in your house,” he said.

Red Cross volunteers showed up quickly at the fire and gave Stegall help, including a spending card that is paying for some days in a local hotel while the family gets back on its feet.

But the greatest gift is still having her family around her, she said.

“I thank God for those smoke alarms and for the Red Cross sending them out there,” Stegall said.

Find out how to prepare your family in case of a fire and more about the Red Cross’ Sound the Alarm program here.

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds, and provides comfort to victims of disasters; supplies about 40% of the nation’s blood; teaches skills that save lives; distributes international humanitarian aid; and supports veterans, military members, and their families. The Red Cross is a nonprofit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to deliver its mission. For more information, please visit redcross.org or CruzRojaAmericana.org, or visit us on Twitter at @RedCross.