Fireman: Both of them happened at night. So, when your smoke alarm goes off, you wake up and yell fire as loud as you can, so everyone else in your house wakes up, and as you get low to the ground, because smoke rises, and then you crawl out of your house as fast as you can, and go to a meeting spot with the rest of your family and then someone should call the fire department.
I have two questions:
1- Which is correct:
A: and as you get low to the ground ← original text
It should agree with “and [then] you crawl”. You should not confuse simultaneous actions with sequential actions. Simultaneous actions happen at the same time. Sequential actions happen one after the other.
as you get low to the ground you crawl out of the house (simultaneous)
Or Then get low to the ground. Then crawl out of the house. (sequential)
“As you” is simultaneous. “Then” is sequential.
In my opinion this entire thing is instructional and should be a set of sequential steps.
The smoke alarm goes off.
You wake up.
You yell as loud as you can to wake up everyone in the house.
Get as low as you can because smoke rises. (everyone should know this because it saves lives)
Crawl out of the house as fast as you can.
Go to a [prearranged] meeting spot [ and make sure everyone is accounted for ].
Call the fire department.
Whether it’s simultaneous or sequential, it should be in agreement.
"2- What does “get low to the ground” mean?
Does it mean “bend down to the ground”?"
It means get as low as possible. Bending down is not low enough. You should crawl on your hands and knees.
