When i was about eight years old (that would be in 1956 or so) my mother, kid brother (four years younger) and i went to visit a college friend of hers who was in town.
We were in the pool at her hotel. Well, i was in the pool, and Dave was walking along the edge pulling a toy boat on a string.
And he fell in. And sank straight to the bottom.
Luckily, i was close enough to grab his arm and pull him up enough for our mom to rescue him. If i'd been further away, it might have turned out rather worse.
Oh - by the way - some of you who read SF may have heard of the four-year-old who almost drowned that day - his name is David Weber.
A comfortable T-shirt designed by students has the potential to save children who accidentally fall into swimming pools.
NBC News reports that the device, called the Watawescue, is intended for children between 2 and 4 years old. Fitted with a mechanism that automatically inflates the clothing when soaking wet, it could act as a safety net for children playing near pools.
The T-shirt has been designed as part of the 2012-2013 InvenTeams Program by team ‘GLAZZ’. The program is a Lemelson-MIT designed to get high-school students excited about the possibility of a STEM (science, technology, mathematics, engineering) career.
The team came up with the design after reviewing 46 deaths attributable to drowning in Arizona during the first six months of this year — 15 of which were children.
“If the child falls in the water in an accident, the mechanism will go off and the inflatable bladder will inflate below the arms,” Briana Soto, a senior at the Girls Leadership Academy of Arizona and part of GLAZZ said.
The inflation mechanism is sewn into a mesh fabric that wraps under the arms, and will inflate only if a child becomes soaked — so sprinklers or spilling juice won’t be enough to accidentally inflate your child every other moment.
A carbon-dioxide cartridge and alarm mechanism is stored into a tiny pouch at the back of the T-shirt; sealed with a bobbin that dissolves once immersed in water. As it dissolves, compressed gas produces a loud sound as the tube inflates, warning parents of danger.
The all-girl team will showcase their projects at MIT in June 2013. In the meantime, GLAZZ will receive $10,000 and industry advice to further refine their design.
It is not intended to replace a life jacket, but as parents who have suffered the accidental death of a child by drowning have said — it only takes five minutes.
According to statistics, drowning is the second leading cause of accidental injury-related death among children ages 1 to 14, and among children ages 1 to 4 years, most drownings occurs in residential or home swimming pools. In addition, roughly 5,000 children 14 and under go to the hospital because of accidental drowning-related incidents each year; 15 percent of these cases results in death, and 20 percent suffer from permanent neurological disabilities.
