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from the launch-T-shirts-at-fundraisers dept.
[Brian] Hunt became the 14th victim of the flood when his truck was swept off of a Route H bridge into the Pomme de Terre River the day after Christmas in 2016.
"It was flooding that night all around Springfield, Missouri," [volunteer firefighter]McKellips recalls. "It was around 40 degrees. Hunt was in the middle of the river, which at that point was probably 200 feet across," McKellips says. "We were so far away, and you could see the water rise – it was happening so quickly – and we weren't able to get enough equipment to them. We couldn't get to him."
The next day, McKellips and his father, Dr. Tom McKellips, a retired Springfield firefighter and now a volunteer firefighter in Walnut Grove, sat down at their kitchen table and started pitching ideas to help fire departments avoid losses like this in the future.
[...] The prototype flotation device, called the Last Chance, has three primary components – a specially designed stand, a pneumatic launcher and a projectile. The projectile, which looks a bit like a foam swimming pool toy, is the flotation device. The device weighs about 30 pounds and costs just over $100 to build.
McKellips' engineering background helped him evaluate the mechanics of materials, safety, price optimization, aerodynamics and rocketry concepts.
"It's fairly simple," McKellips says. "You use compressed air to launch the projectile a decent distance." Right now, the device is capable of launching the flotation device about 250 feet. The team is working on improvements that will extend that reach to well over 500 feet.
How would you rescue somebody trapped in a rising river?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday March 16 2017, @11:57PM
In the areas by my hometown, where illegal Beaners die regularly trying to illegally swim across our canals, we have floatie lines [wikimedia.org] already installed in various spots so people who fall in can grab onto them. I think it would be more economical to install static but effective floatie-lines rather than have to speed over to the site with a Rube Goldberg floatie-cannon. Canals in particular often have dangerous gates [corednacdn.com] and drops where you can get sucked into the undertow and then stuck underwater in the gate.
The floatie-cannon does have its applications (I could think a non-linear water situation such as a flood, especially in the city, but with regard to rivers and canals I think floatie-lines are the best solution.