safeinthecar
Moderator - CPS Technician
Gilbert company to make safety seats for ambulances
http://www.azcentral.com/community/gilbert/articles/1128gr-childseat1129-on.html
David van den Berg
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 28, 2007 01:32 PM
Next month, a Gilbert company expects to start production on a safety
seat for toddlers and infants - for ambulances.
Serenity Safety Products, a firm with five employees that launched in
November 2006, unveiled the seat at a National Truck Equipment
Association meeting in Michigan in September. The seat should be in
its first ambulances in January, said Kurt Hinkle, the company's
president and chief executive officer.
Hinkle is a former Phoenix Fire Department paramedic and firefighter.
While he couldn't quantify the number of times it happened, he said it
was a regular occurrence that uninjured toddlers or infants would need
a ride in an ambulance with their injured parent or guardian, or in a
separate ambulance. Other options for transporting uninjured children
include taking child seats from the parent's car, using safety
restraints attached to the gurney, or the paramedic simply holding the
child, he said.
The ride in an ambulance is rough, Hinkle said.
"It's like standing up in the back of a pickup truck," he said.
There are 307 accidents per week in emergency transportation vehicles
nationwide, according to statistics Hinkle provided from the National
Fire Protection Association.
The projected retail price is about $4,500, said Dan Sjoquist, the
company's chief financial officer and vice president of operations.
Installing the seat will add to the $125,000 cost of an ambulance. The
seat is likely to reduce liability for both municipal and private
ambulance providers, Hinkle said, because protection is being added
for a rider that wasn't available before.
The seat, the Guardian Safety Seat, is actually multiple seats in one.
It works as an ambulance attendant seat. Folding down the seat's
center back cushion, the toddler seat is revealed. Children weighing
between 23-85 pounds can use the seat, and are secured in a five point
restraint system. The infant seat is revealed by folding down a panel
behind the center back cushion, removing the seat bottom cushion and
then releasing a safety bar, according to a company brochure. Infants
weighing between five and 22 pounds can then be secured in a cradle
with a padded headrest by a five point restraint system. The cradle is
hidden under the seat cushions.
Serenity Safety products collaborated with students and professors in
the College of Design at Arizona State University and a Tempe-based
mechanical engineering firm called ESG Engineering in the design and
engineering of the seat, Hinkle said.
"I was a little but surprised that we didn't have that kind of product
in the marketplace," said Dosun Shin, an assistant professor of
industrial design at Arizona State who worked on the project.
"I believe its going to be a very successful product."
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2ez2yw
http://www.azcentral.com/community/gilbert/articles/1128gr-childseat1129-on.html
David van den Berg
The Arizona Republic
Nov. 28, 2007 01:32 PM
Next month, a Gilbert company expects to start production on a safety
seat for toddlers and infants - for ambulances.
Serenity Safety Products, a firm with five employees that launched in
November 2006, unveiled the seat at a National Truck Equipment
Association meeting in Michigan in September. The seat should be in
its first ambulances in January, said Kurt Hinkle, the company's
president and chief executive officer.
Hinkle is a former Phoenix Fire Department paramedic and firefighter.
While he couldn't quantify the number of times it happened, he said it
was a regular occurrence that uninjured toddlers or infants would need
a ride in an ambulance with their injured parent or guardian, or in a
separate ambulance. Other options for transporting uninjured children
include taking child seats from the parent's car, using safety
restraints attached to the gurney, or the paramedic simply holding the
child, he said.
The ride in an ambulance is rough, Hinkle said.
"It's like standing up in the back of a pickup truck," he said.
There are 307 accidents per week in emergency transportation vehicles
nationwide, according to statistics Hinkle provided from the National
Fire Protection Association.
The projected retail price is about $4,500, said Dan Sjoquist, the
company's chief financial officer and vice president of operations.
Installing the seat will add to the $125,000 cost of an ambulance. The
seat is likely to reduce liability for both municipal and private
ambulance providers, Hinkle said, because protection is being added
for a rider that wasn't available before.
The seat, the Guardian Safety Seat, is actually multiple seats in one.
It works as an ambulance attendant seat. Folding down the seat's
center back cushion, the toddler seat is revealed. Children weighing
between 23-85 pounds can use the seat, and are secured in a five point
restraint system. The infant seat is revealed by folding down a panel
behind the center back cushion, removing the seat bottom cushion and
then releasing a safety bar, according to a company brochure. Infants
weighing between five and 22 pounds can then be secured in a cradle
with a padded headrest by a five point restraint system. The cradle is
hidden under the seat cushions.
Serenity Safety products collaborated with students and professors in
the College of Design at Arizona State University and a Tempe-based
mechanical engineering firm called ESG Engineering in the design and
engineering of the seat, Hinkle said.
"I was a little but surprised that we didn't have that kind of product
in the marketplace," said Dosun Shin, an assistant professor of
industrial design at Arizona State who worked on the project.
"I believe its going to be a very successful product."
http://preview.tinyurl.com/2ez2yw