Fire Trucks With Escalators Would Save Many More Lives [Republished]

Orville Douglas Denison spent his youth sketching out futuristic aircraft, but in retirement he’s turned pragmatic. His ” aerial fire truck,” a cross between a conveyer belt and a ladder, could help firefighters quickly shuttle victims out of burning buildings.

Denison began studying fire-rescue technology after watching TV coverage of the arena Trade Center evacuations on September 11, 2001. Eventually he turned his focus to the ladders often used for smaller buildings. Firemen began deploying telescoping ladders inside the 1880s, and they haven’t changed significantly since. ” It’s ridiculous to climb up, put someone to your shoulders, and climb down,” Denison says. There had to be a faster way, he thought. So he designed a moving ladder that may be retrofit-ted to trucks to lessen a firefighter’s climbing time by more than half.

In a rescue, firemen could extend Denison’s hydraulic ladder to windows as high as 113 feet. But in preference to clamber up the ladder, the firefighter would hop on, and the rungs would roll up at 200 feet per minute-more than twice the typical climbing speed of a firefighter weighed down by 130 pounds of substances. The firefighter would ride to a window, load unconscious victims into a rescue bag, hook the bag to the ladder, and shift it into reverse to bring the person to safety. Denison says it could possibly now absorb to 15 minutes, and often several men, to carry one victim down a ladder from 10 stories. He estimates that his ladder could lower four people to the ground in not up to four minutes.

Several firefighting experts praise Denison’s innovative approach, while also nitpicking the design, suggesting that simpler is healthier for rescue technology. But Denison, who has interest from some manufacturers, welcomes the critiques-he’s intent on making his ladder a reality. ” To me,” he says, ” that’s an obvious necessity and a option to an age-old problem.”

As Denison’s new hydraulic ladder extends, it draws additional rungs from in the base unit. The rungs are on rollers that slide on tracks to feed the ladder. Each roller moves independently and is hooked up to a spring-loaded cable that keeps the line taut as the rungs run up and down the ladder at 200 feet per minute.

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This post is tagged: burning buildings, futuristic aircraft, rescue technology, september 11 2001, telescoping ladders