Oklahoma Children Say Sparkles Helped Them Escape Fires

Feb. 26, 2009
Two students at Celia Clinton Elementary School experienced house fires after Sparkles visited and say they learned how to get low and get out with her help.

TULSA, Okla. -- Students at Celia Clinton Elementary School learned an important lesson and it may have even saved some lives. All thanks to a dog named Sparkles.

Sparkles is a fire safety training dog, and last fall, she and her handler Firefighter Dayna Hilton talked to students at Celica Clinton.

On Tuesday she came back to present a couple of awards to a couple of students who took her fire safety lessons to heart. Two students at Celia Clinton experienced house fires after Sparkles visited. Both students say they learned how to get low and get out with the help of Sparkles.

Sparkles actually demonstrates getting low, and going to safe base during her presentations, and it's a lesson these students say they won't forget.

"She teaches us everything that we need to know," said Angelica Riggins, a student a Celia Clinton, who escaped a house fire.

"When they see her doing it, and they remember, oh that's what Sparkles did! That's what's so neat about today was to hear the stories and the kids say, 'I knew what to do because Sparkles, Sparkles taught me what to do," said Dayna Hilton, a firefighter from Arkansas who travels with Sparkles.

Sparkles training techniques are based on curriculum from Oklahoma State University.

Republished with permission of KJRH-TV.

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