SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20190624-D5DB8-2147380313. Severity: Injury, First Aid Received by Non-Medical Professional. Product: First Alert SA511 (First Alert OneLink wireless smoke alarm). Incident: This smoke alarm started blaring a full emergency (NOT a low battery) at approximately 4:00am on June 11, 2019. I immediately went to find the source of the fire, as nobody in the house was awake, and no one had been for many hours at that time to cause a false alarm from things like steam or burning food. After a moment of panic that seemed like hours, I determined that there was no emergency. Unfortunately I then fell getting the alarm off the ceiling and was knocked unconscious for a minute or two. Besides a head injury, I had injuries to my legs where I hit while going down. While I was relieved to find that my house was *not* in fact on fire, I'm extremely concerned that this alarm would malfunction in such a way as to go into full emergency mode without any smoke or fire whatsoever. It was located in the hallway, a normally occupied area of the house, and was not dusty or dirty. Smoke alarms simply should not sound at random in clear air. Like most people would do, I immediately removed the batteries. However, as you certainly know, dead or missing batteries in smoke detectors are a leading cause of fire deaths in the United States. Thus, it is imperative that smoke alarms function correctly. I also would not have been injured and knocked unconscious if I didn't have to get the screaming alarm off the ceiling in a time of panic and adrenaline. I would like the CPSC to investigate and see if a full recall is warranted on this type of alarm. If you would like me to send you the unit in question that malfunctioned, I kept it and am willing to ship it for further investig