Avalanches injure over 1,500 people on an annual basis and 150 of them don’t survive these incidents. Nevertheless, skiers, snowboarders and other extreme sports enthusiasts continue to press their luck on mountains around the world.
Delen
Industrial Design Engineering student Robert Oude Nijhuis focused on this problem while working on his MSc thesis.
“People are natural risk takers,” Oude Nijhuis said during his defence on July 8, 2016. “They look at these statistics and say, ‘Oh, that’s not going to happen to me.’ But even the pros can die.”
He zeroed in on developing a practical safety device that might appeal to backcountry skiers and freeriders alike. The latter are thrill-seeking snowboarders that love blasting down dangerous slopes that are typically located far from the nearest ski resort (and emergency rescue crews as well). To make matters worse, they often shun helmets and snowboard while looking at apps on their smartwatches or while filming themselves.
Unsurprisingly, all too many freeriders and backcountry skiers have fallen prey to avalanches, which can reach speeds of 160 km/h. The average victim in these incidents typically has about 15 minutes of air before they succumb to acute asphyxiation. Complicating matters, rescue crews need at least 60 minutes on average to locate and extract them. “Any technology that is used to achieve this should focus on eliminating the chances of carbon dioxide build up around the victim’s respiratory conducting zone,” Oude Nijhuis wrote in his abstract. “Supplying fresh oxygen is not required as it can be extracted directly from the snowpack.”
Oude Nijhuis came up with several concepts for an unobtrusive breathing apparatus and he outlined several of them during his defence. One featured an airbag similar to those in automobiles. He eventually settled on a prototype that he calls the Avaguard. It utilises sophisticated absorbents capable of removing carbon dioxide from the air. The device could provide buried avalanche victims with an hour of oxygen or more. Similar systems have been used on the International Space Station. Even better, these absorbents are lightweight and they don’t require electricity, which could make the Avaguard ideal for even the wildest of slopes.
Oude Nijhuis, R., Breathing Support for Buried Avalanche Victims, Supervisors: Jansen, A.J. and Obersdorf, J.E., Defence: July 8, 2016
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