Gizmodo: first aid

CPR Pad Makes Resuscitation as Easy as ABC

Kit Eaton — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:11:00 EDT

This concept is a gizmo which you'd have in a first aid kit to help you if someone collapses and needs CPR. You'd whack it on the chest of the ill person, line it up and follow its instructions. It flashes to give you proper timing, and clicks to let you know you're using the right chest-compression pressure (it's harder than you think). It looks pretty simple, and is exactly the sort of thing that might help save a few lives in an emergency. Best of all, it's a classic case of nominative determinism in action: its designer is Ryan Helps. [Yanko Design]

Swiss Peace Knife, the Caring Sharing Pocket Multi-Tool

Kit Eaton — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:15:57 EDT

The Swiss Peace Knife concept is designed to be the ... um, Swiss Army Knife of pocket first aid kits. Using that distinctive form-factor for a band-aid dispenser, pill box, disinfectant spray and even a whistle seems a genius idea, to me. Might even be pretty useful, for outdoor sporty types. You'd just have to make sure that you were carrying the Army version if you came across a horse with something stuck in its hoof. It's just a concept, for now, from designers Qian Jiang, Yiying Wu and Carolina Flores. [Yanko designs]

TongueSucker Makes CPR a Whole Lot Easier for Rookie First Aiders

AddyDugdale — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 07:13:05 EDT

Designed by students at the Royal College of Art in London, Tongue Sucker is a simple gadget to help people untrained in first-aid administer CPR during emergencies, as well as solving the hygiene problem for people unwilling to get up close and personal with a stranger in order to save his or her life. The idea, which prevents an unconscious patient from blocking their airway with their tongue, is as simple as its name:

Hold the open end over the victim's tongue and pinch the red bladder to create a vacuum. The Tongue Sucker will attach itself to the patient's tongue and keep their airway unblocked. Then start chest compression-only CPR (or sexy time, if you really are that much of a loser) — a simplified version of CPR for untrained first-aiders.
The students came up with the idea following the July 2005 subway bombings in London, when they realized that something was needed to bridge the gap between an accident and the arrival of the emergency services. Tongue Sucker is already past the prototype stage, but its four creators are hoping to start product evaluation and clinical trials soon.

[Tonguesucker via MedGadget]

Portable Splint for Extreme Sports Welds Itself Together

Charlie White — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:15:00 EDT

This portable plastic splint takes up a tiny space in a backpack but brings big relief, holding a broken limb together long enough to get medical help and providing soothing warmth in the meantime. The special plastic fuses itself together in about five minutes using the same chemical-reactive heat technology used in hand warmers.

Aimed at extreme sports enthusiasts such as snowboarders and skiers, the technology could offer a bit of comfort to those 450,000 wracked-up snow sports adventurers who are injured each year, many of whom sometimes have a long wait until they can get patched up in a proper hospital.

This idea might be great for ski patrol personnel to carry around, but what extreme sports participant would take along splints for broken bones? It could jinx the whole trip, dude. – Charlie White

Soft splint instantly heat-welds to hold broken limbs [NewScientistTech]

Target, Red Cross First Aid Kit

Travis Hudson — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 10:17:13 EDT

Everyone knows you haven't lived until a Black Cat has exploded in the palm of your hand, preferable with the fist closed. Sure you can pour water on the wound and try to clean it up before going to the hospital, but this first aid and preparedness kit from Target should do the trick this fourth when your hands are burned to a crisp. This kit includes whistles, dust masks, duct tape, a poncho, a radio, a color book and even more. It sounds more like a detox kit rather than a first aid kit, but whatever. Travis Hudson

First Aid & Preparedness Kit [Yanko]