HELP!" "DANGER!" "TAKE COVER!" "GET OUT OF THE WAY!" The audible warning signals are a universal means of communication that can reach people across vast distances, transcending language barriers, education levels, and literacy skills. When shouting for help isn't effective, horns serve as a crucial tool to prevent ship collisions in foggy or low-visibility conditions. Trains use them to warn pedestrians of potential danger when crossing their paths at high speeds, while sirens, the auditory counterpart to horns, alert individuals to imminent threats such as natural disasters and manmade crises like air raids and ground warfare.
What occurs at the crematory when you're faced with a situation that demands everyone's attention, yet no one can hear your calls for help? Whether you're working solo or as part of a team, it's crucial to have a way to alert as many people as possible in order to prevent a disaster, respond to a medical emergency, or simply to get assistance with loading.
On October 14th, 2024, Gavin Off, a reporter for The Charlotte Observer, published an article titled “No Warning Horn Sounded at Site of Fatal North Carolina Fire.” The report highlighted that two construction workers lost their lives, and many others required emergency rescue and evacuation due to the absence of an air horn on-site. “The five-alarm blaze, which was the largest in Charlotte's recent history, claimed the lives of Reuben Holmes and Demonte Sherill, two men who were installing windows on the sixth floor of the under-construction apartment building.” The article further noted, “In April, Department of Labor officials issued fines totaling over $56,000 to three companies for a series of violations linked to the devastating fire.”
“The 169-page file recently released fills in more details on how safety code violations at the site likely slowed the escape of some of the roughly 35 workers at the job site, or — in the case of the two workers who were killed— could have prevented them from reaching safety.”
“It’s insane,” said Faith Fox , a Charlotte attorney representing the families of Holmes and Sherrill. “All of these little things could have saved two people’s lives. Basic things, like the placement of an air horn, contributed to the deaths of my clients.”
The state labor inspector determined that sounding an air horn could have quickly warned workers about the May 2023 fire. “The use of an audible alarm, such as an air horn or multiple air horns, would have provided an instantaneous alert for all workers to evacuate the building to a safe location,” the DOL report states.
Is your crematory located offsite? Do you have a fire alarm installed there? Should you evacuate or relocate when it goes off? If you want to capture the attention of others, this is the most effective method. If your cremation unit operates loudly during use or cooling, this horn can easily be heard over that noise, even if someone is using earplugs or noise-canceling headphones. This device can be mounted on your wall, is highly visible in safety yellow, and the horn is easily accessible if everyone knows where it is. Just follow these two simple steps: pull the red handle to remove the front panel, take out the horn, and press it.
“Shortly after the fire, an unnamed construction site representative told a North Carolina investigator that he didn’t know where the air horn was stored. Minutes later during an interview, he changed that and said the air horn was in a “job box” in an on-site parking garage, documents show. The state investigator eventually found an air horn attached to a fence near an entrance to the complex, according to the just-released documents. It’s unclear if that was the air horn closest to where the fire broke out, according to the records. Previously filed court records say that workers at the site ran up and down the site’s lone stairway yelling “fire, fire” to warn those working above the ground floor.