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Young children need to know how to properly react in the event of an emergency. In order to get students up to par, Tommie Barfield Elementary invited Red E. Fox, a giant cuddly “friend,” to visit with Kindergarten and first grade students Tuesday, making sure that they know everything they need to know to best handle an unexpected situation.

“Red E. Fox is a program that teaches kids how, when and when not to call 9-1-1. It’s a puppet based video,” explained Sandi Chernoff, 9-1-1 Coordinator for Collier County Sheriff’s Department. “This is a program out of California. We show the video and then we do a little quiz show at the end, to make sure they understand. Then the fox makes an appearance and the kids get to shake his hand. Some like to high five him. We give them stickers, erasers and pencils.”

Collier County Sheriff’s Department feels that educating children ages four through seven on various safety issues is critical. The county sends out a letter just before Labor Day each year asking schools for permission to put on the presentation. Children learn exactly what will happen when dialing the seriously well known number.

“We educate the kids and tell them if you call 9-1-1 you’re going to have a deputy at your door, we dispatch automatically. So I think that kind of scares them. The video teaches them and we reiterate: do not play on 9-1-1,” said Chernoff.

The video encourages kids to stay on the line and explain what happened, in case of accidentally dialing the emergency call center. According to Justin Koval, Communications Supervisor at the 9-1-1 Center in Naples which also serves Marco Island, prank and mis-dials to the center are few and far between.

“There have been a few children that call when they’ve had an argument or violence with parents. The majority of the time kids call because someone got hurt. We did have a little girl who called because her mother wouldn’t wake up. Her mother had taught her that she had diabetes, told her where her medications were and what needed to happen if she ever didn’t wake up or got sick. And the little girl called 9-1-1 and was able to tell us exactly what was wrong with her mother, gave us her address and was able to help her mom until the paramedics got there.”