Associated Press Julie Reynolds can't remember what she ate, or the name of the New York restaurant where it happened. Years after a fire alarm interrupted her meal, what sticks in her mind is the dumbstruck look of diners peering up from their plates as she and her companions fled. It turned out there was no fire. That's what many of the 640 Seton Hall University students did early Wednesday when a killer fire erupted in their dormitory. Boland Hall had shuddered with false alarms 18 times since September.
Experts say indifference to any alarm is common.
People in general don't think fire is going to happen to them. They think they're safest in the places they're least safe. It puts the people who ignore the alarms in jeopardy, and the lives of firefighters in jeopardy. Reynolds' group estimates that in a typical year between 1980 and 1996, there was an average of 1,800 fires at dormitories, fraternities and sororities. All rights reserved.