Splash73p58-92 - Splash Magazine

product release
lonGreACh resCUe devICe
While this isn’t a device for swimming pools, it’s worth mentioning to
demonstrate some of the current Aussie innovation in water safety.
The Longreach is a great idea – a portable device that can send a rescue
buoy more than 150 metres to people in distress.
It is designed to allow a victim to remain buoyant while rescue personnel
prepare the appropriate response to the situation. The rescue package
uses hydrophobic or rapidly expanding foam to provide buoyancy once the
package contacts the water. This allows the package to be vastly smaller in
size than any currently existing buoyancy device.
Every year hundreds of people are drowned in situations where rescue
systems are present, but unable to reach the victim in a timely fashion.
Longreach is designed to accommodate a wide range of users from the
beach and small fishing boats through to super tankers.
Longreach is currently in the prototyping and testing phase and is due
to start field trials with Surf Life Saving NSW in the coming months.
Designer Sam Adeloju won the James Dyson International Design
Award for this invention.
As well as being a graduate student at the University of NSW, he is also
a private with the University Regiment. He came up with this idea after a
military training session when he realised how grenade launchers could
be used to launch all sorts of other things – in this case, something to save
lives rather than take them.