A semi-automatic way to save yourself from a skyscraper disaster, this belaying backpack works automatically to lower you speedily but safely down the side of a structure on fire or otherwise posing live-threatening dangers.

The SkySaver hooks onto a pre-installed attachment sunk into your wall, floor or ceiling. The bag portion clips quickly around your torso, while the line starts letting you down as you exit a window.

Users have very little to do in the operation of the device – mainly, they just need to push themselves away from the building and let the unspooling rope do the rest of the work, pacing their way down the side.

All seriousness aside, this seems like a fantastic way to amuse oneself either recreationally or as a last-day-of work exist from a building to which you never plan to return.

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If you ever get into trouble while swimming in a lake or ocean, help may just come in the form of a flotation device-toting flying drone. Students from the King Low Heywood Thomas School of Stamford, CT, in cooperation with Flying Robots LLC, designed a clip-on accessory called Project Ryptide that fits onto just about any consumer drone or RC helicopter. It clips on in under 30 seconds and weighs just 410 grams.

Any RC copter that can carry a GoPro camera can carry a Ryptide self-inflating flotation device, though the team developed it to work with the DJI Phantom. After the short 30 second preparation, the drone can carry the life-saving flotation device to the distressed swimmer and drop it. A radio-controlled trigger activates the floatie’s inflation.

There appears to be a lot of room for user error here since a human being directs the drone and decides where to drop and deploy the flotation device. Distances can be incredibly difficult to judge from shore to water, so some kind of proximity sensor would be useful. Still, even dropping the flotation device in the general area of the distressed swimmer would be more helpful than standing on the beach doing nothing.

The post Rescue From Above: Inflating Float Ring Clips Onto Drone first appeared on Gajitz.

While we would like to believe that there will always be a trained medical professional on hand whenever there is an accident, the reality is that sometimes regular people have to step in and save the day. The First Aid Blanket is a Red Dot award winning concept developed at Zhejiang University to aid bystanders in the rescue of drowning victims. It is designed to be stored rolled up in a tube near places where drownings are likely to occur.

The blanket is a visual step-by-step guide to reviving someone who has been pulled from the water. An outline shows where to position the person on the blanket. The positioning is important because there is a fold-over flap that identifies the area on the victim’s chest where compressions should be performed.

Graphics on the blanket show the steps a rescuer should take when dealing with the emergency. There are written instructions as well, but the graphics are simple enough that they should be universally understood even by people who do not read English. The blanket instructs the rescuer to first call for help, then check for signs of life. If the victim displays no signs of life, the blanket walks the rescuer through the steps of clearing the airway, breathing, and performing compressions.

It should be noted that while hands-only CPR is now recommended by the American Red Cross for many emergencies, mouth-to-mouth CPR is still the best course of action for drowning victims. The blanket illustrates the procedures for performing compressions and mouth-to-mouth, and while the beats per minute instructions might be difficult to understand for a non-English reader, the general concepts are clearly laid out. That alone can buy the crucial time needed to get an ambulance on the scene.

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The typical human doesn’t have to think of the best way to rescue other humans from drowning on any given day, but the Dutch fire service has to consider it quite often. The team at Spark Design & Innovation came up with a new device that could make water rescues far easier, and the design is pretty ingenious.

The Rescue Tip-Board is an inflatable raft that could seriously revolutionize water rescues. Typically, pulling someone from a body of water involves either throwing a line to them from the shore (which doesn’t work when they aren’t responsive) or paddling out to them in a raft or boat that just might capsize when you try to haul an entire person onto it. Not to mention the sheer strength it takes to pull someone onto a life raft from that very precarious angle.

This is what the Rescue Tip-Board solves. It’s not a typical inflatable raft; it’s actually designed to let the operator stand up on one end, tipping the raft forward. From this angle the rescuer can reach down, grab the victim in the water, and simply shift their body weight backward to create a lever effect that pulls the victim up and onto the raft.

The idea is that the rescuer and the raft will be towed out to the victim behind a small watercraft, then towed back to the shore so the rescuer can stay with the victim and perform life-saving tactics if necessary. When the inflatable fabric raft is deflated, it is small and lightweight enough to be worn as a backpack. A small can of compressed air inflates it in seconds and it can be in the water in almost no time.

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In 2012 alone, GOPR, a volunteer rescue organization in Poland, rescued more than 7,350 off of the Krakow mountains. With that type of workload, the rescue team needed a unique kind of vehicle that could handle the unique conditions in the mountains. Although they were already equipped with plenty of standard vehicles, GOPR needed one that could speed through the snow and let an injured person lie down flat.

Design firm Lange & Lange designed the GOPR Rescue Snowmobile to fill this need. The bright yellow vehicle looks a little like Pac-Man with a backpack. It can traverse difficult terrain and withstand all kinds of weather conditions to quickly reach the injured person. Two skis on the front help it travel across the snow while a caterpillar track on the undercarriage propels it quickly over all kinds of terrain.

The bubble-like front of the rescue-mobile was no accident. It provides a maximum view of the surroundings so that rescuers can spot the injured person quickly. The boxy part in back allows the patient to lie down flat, which is often very important when transporting an injury victim. The vehicle is affordable enough that GOPR’s rescuers will be able to make swift, life-saving rescues in their bright yellow snow machines.

The post Bubble-Shaped Snowmobile: Saving Injured People in Style first appeared on Gajitz.