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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: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 17 2017, @12:26AM (8 children)
Why bother?
Just send a thick rope that floats, 20 to 30 feet long, with a flotation device at both ends.
Just need to get it upstream of the person, and let them catch the rope and use the flotation to head downstream until they're in a better place to be rescued.
Modern version, Patent pending: drop the rope close upstream using one or two drones. Given battery range, you only need a drone or two per city. Use the camera to sell the rescue pictures to TVs and pay for the device.
...
BRB, gotta see that patent lawyer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @01:01AM (2 children)
Better yet, use the drone to drop / deliver the rescue gear directly on the target.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 17 2017, @01:18AM
A floating rope coming down to you has a better chance of being caught if you're fighting for stability in flood waters.
Ideally, the two ends are far enough apart that the rope grabs you /your car rather than the opposite.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @02:22AM
Don't you need Amazon Prime for that service?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 17 2017, @01:04AM (4 children)
So basically a giant floating bola. Sounds safe. No way the victim is going to get tangled up in the rope and drown while you watch helplessly from shore.
Also, how exactly are you imagining they get this rope upstream of them, when they're a hundred feet or more away from the river bank? You still need a way to throw the rope that far. Which is basically all this device does - it's an air cannon that shoots a flotation device, and hey, as long as you're throwing the thing, why not keep a hold of one end of the rope so that you can pull them out immediately, like a harpoon of mercy? After al, there's no guarantee there's any easier way to get out downstream, and floodwaters are notoriously treacherous, even with a flotation device.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday March 17 2017, @01:34AM (3 children)
What's easier to do when you're "hundred feet or more away" ? Use a hexacopter to drop a flotation device just upstream of the victim, or try to hit them with a compressed air cannon?
Keeping one end is desirable, except that it means your good-enough launch point has to also be a good-enough dragging point. If you're on the wrong side of the river, you'll drag them into the worst current hoping to take them out.
Using a drone, you can start the rescue from 5 miles away, cutting precious minutes which many don't have (per TFS example). You might not even be able to get close if the bridge you need is the one they just fell from.
So, when you get the emergency call, you need the cannon toy with you. You need to find the victim, get close enough without killing yourself, even if they already drifted downstream. You need to shoot correctly, having guessed the wind, rain and the floodwaters. And you don't have much time to do all that before hypothermia.
I'm suggesting punching some coordinates into a drone at the station, having it race there ignoring any road conditions. Giving you a visual of the victims in minutes, and allowing you to try to give them something to hang onto if they're not going to hold on long enough for the human rescuers.
Sure that's not ideal. But if I'm in the water, I know which process I'd prefer.
PS: if people get tangled and drown with floating rope and floaters, I'm calling it natural selection
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday March 17 2017, @02:13AM (2 children)
How well do affordable drones stand up to operating in wind and rain? Because both can be fairly common during floods.
I do agree that a good drone could be a better alternative - but also a considerably more fragile and expensive one, which is an important consideration especially for cash-strapped volunteer rescue services. It's also not clear to me that drones would be significantly faster in the majority of cases - a very large percentage of flooding problems happen outside urban areas, where there's unlikely to be a nearby station within affordable drone range. Also flood rescues commonly happen in canyons, where radio and GPS can be unreliable, so a drone is not without it's own issues.
Obviously you'd need to have the cannon with you - presumably as standard equipment on your emergency vehicle, at least whenever there's flooding going on. A lot cheaper and more convenient than taking a drone with you, and the ability to launch a rope 200+ feet would probably prove useful in a number of other situations as well. They even used an air cannon at least partially because air tanks are part of the standard firefighting equipment, so power would always be readily available.
Shooting correctly seems unlikely to be a problem - obviously you'll need a little practice (I'm betting air-cannon training day will be popular), but as long as you can hit "further away and upstream" it should be good enough for most situations.
As for your P.S., I can only assume you've never dealt with a long rope in turbulent waters. Getting tangled up is the default assumption, it takes a certain amount of level-headed caution to avoid it getting serious. Not something you want to inflict on someone likely inexperienced with the process while they're probably at least a little panicked and maybe dealing with hypothermia.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @12:20PM (1 child)
I guess no one has ever heard of a Lyle gun. Now get off of my lawn.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 17 2017, @02:51PM
Excellent tool, but I can understand why its not standard issue on fire trucks. It's a bit overkill for river rescue.
I wonder if it served as inspiration for this cannon, or if they invented the same basic concept independently. Certainly this seems far better optimized for in rivers and by a fire crew.