When you ride thru rural areas of Pennsylvania , Ohio and New york or Indiana you may encounter a Horse Drawn buggy being driven by an Amish man with plain clothing straw hat and beard.
a throw back to the days of old this is not something they do on the weekend for tourists this is there religion with roots that go back to Germany.Which prohibits them from using modern conveniences.
There homes have no running water , electricity gas or telephones. They live like the early pioneers of yesterday. There only educated to the 8th grade.
They have no Smoke Detectors in there homes thou some have wind up heat detectors and entire family's have been killed in night time fires . When this happens in the community they say it is Gods Will it has happened when asked why they do not have Smoke Detectors which require AC or battery power.
If they need to travel a far distance they hire a non Amish individual to transport them in a in van with shades.
They shun modern ways of living but they do embrace the use of modern hospitals if it is life threatening. Those of us not with in the Amish community are refereed to as" The English ".
With this in mind from time to time in the papers you will see where an Amish Man or women has been seriously injured or even died from burns they received lighting or keeping lighted there Wood Stove when they have thrown too much kerosene into it.
The latest incident happening in Indiana County Pa. where an Amish gentleman lighting his stove severely burned himself and his son's and had to be Life flighted to a Pittsburgh Hospital with Special Burn ward, and they will endure much pain and recovery after suffering life threatening 3rd degree burns. One of the sons has unfortunately passed
While common sense would tell you not to do this taking a small cup of kerosene and throwing it on to an already lighted fire. or overfilling the stove with kerosene when first lighting it This is common practice in Amish Country and all too often it results in serious burn injury's to mostly women which they often try to fix with home remedy before arranging for professional care.
I asked a local fire marshal about this and he tells me yes He has talked to Pa. State Fire Marshals at seminars , who work these rural areas and despite there best efforts to educate the Amish community against this it goes on all the time.
Now I have been told by those (English) who live by or have vacation homes near Amish community's that they find the Amish to be extremely stupid people because of all the in breeding with in the community as they do not marry outside there community's. and end up marrying cousins etc. But I do not know if this is the case or even the cause of what is happening.
The Amish I have encountered on Job sites are very level headed but are set in there ways of following the rules of there Order and Bishop who is the figure head in there community and some community's are more lenient than others. Where they will allow Amish to have a phone
in there outhouse or use a generator to run a machine in there Wood/Furniture shop.
But there are some who are very strict not even allowing the use of the orange triangle on the rear of there buggy's to warn motorists as bright colors are forbidden.
In a world where Fire Safety Vs Religion
Religious freedom always comes first with the Amish community so all we can do is make suggestions that they follow safe fire practices which are one of the biggest dangers in there community's since they use candles , kerosene lights , wood stoves and fireplaces
Sadly since posting this article the father in this article has died 02.13.2012
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