Emergencies

The HMD OffGrid pairs with Android and iOS phones, and offers three days of battery life

Mobile Technology

$200 gadget brings global satellite texting to any smartphone

Known for its budget Android phones, HMD has launched a potentially life-saving product for adventurers. Its OffGrid accessory pairs with any smartphone and enables texting via satellite networks – so you can reach people from the middle of nowhere.

The Responder drone charges its battery between uses in a robotic Responder Station, which it can fly out of in under five seconds

Drones

Responder drone gets eyes on emergencies – and can even take action

Wouldn't it be neat to see a drone using flashing lights and a siren to chase down crooks? Well, the Responder quadcopter comes equipped with both, along with other gear designed to help quicken response times when crimes or other emergencies occur.

Mediwave has partnered with Sri Lanka's 1990 Suwa Seriya to launch the "world's first mixed-reality and AI-powered connected ambulance"

Wellness & Healthy Living

Connected ambulance crews debut mixed-reality emergency response

An ambulance service in Sri Lanka has equipped its EMTs with a mixed-reality headset to help deliver emergency care with the help of a live-feed doctor in the crucial moments before a patient is admitted to hospital.

The current cost of buying 1,000 camp beds for a refugee camp is $110,000 to $220,000, it takes two weeks to produce them, another two weeks to ship them (by land or sea) and 24 hours to set them up. By comparison, 1,000 Humanitaria beds cost $17,000, can be produced in hours on existing, readily-available packaging machinery in every major city in the world, delivered folded flat by plane next day and can be set up in 20 minutes. The first 24 hours is critical in disaster response and this invention brings massive promise!

Good Thinking

The ingenious cardboard bed

Humanitaria has created a cardboard bed for the critical first 24 hours of a humanitarian emergency. The beds can be manufactured at 1,000 units per hour for a 10th of the cost, assembled 200 times quicker, and landed where needed 100 times faster.

A rendering of the JA1 Pulse in fixed-wing forward flight

Aircraft

Jump Aero reveals design of ambulance-beating JA1 Pulse eVTOL

Three years ago, California-based Jump Aero announced its plan to bring first responders to emergency sites via eVTOL aircraft. The company has now unveiled the design and specs of the vehicle, and already has a buyer lined up.

Vuzix M400 smart glasses are being utilized in the project

Virtual Reality

Japanese EMTs to start using AR glasses while transporting patients

There are many potential uses for augmented reality (AR) glasses, such as real-time captioning for the deaf, training military pilots, and providing runners with virtual partners. Now, they may also help Japanese emergency medical technicians (EMTs) save lives.

Sesame's nanogrids can be transported to location by a variety of vehicles, deployed in about 15 minutes, and used to supply power for emergencies and off-grid situations

Energy

Fast-deploying solar/hydrogen nanogrid wheels emergency power off-grid

Sesame Solar announced this week what it calls the world's first 100-percent renewable mobile nanogrid. Powered by a wing-like solar panel spread and green hydrogen, the modular nanogrid brings weeks of autonomous electricity where it's most needed.

REACT consists of a tamponade that is inserted into a stab wound (left), and an actuator that is then used to inflate the tamponade

Good Thinking

Student designs device to save stabbing victims' lives

When someone is suffering from a deep stab wound, it's important to apply pressure within that wound. A new student-designed device is intended to let first responders do just that, potentially saving lives that might otherwise be lost.

Rendering of how the CityHawk might look in Hatzolah livery

Aircraft

CityHawk VTOL preordered by New York-based EMS organization

New York-based medical transport non-profit Hatzolah Air has placed a preorder for four of Urban Aeronautics' CityHawk VTOL aircraft for emergency medical service (EMS) applications within urban environments.

Emergency Bikes are built upon an existing Urban Arrow cargo ebike

Bicycles

Ebike ambulance hits the streets of Paris

Because bikes can skirt around traffic jams – and park just about anywhere – they're often faster than cars on congested city streets. That's why bicycle couriers exist, and it's also why the Emergency Bikes ebike ambulance was created.

Field tests of the VoloCity for air rescue operations are due to begin in 2023

Aircraft

Volocopter's air taxi to take part in air rescue field testing

A feasibility study modeled on the VoloCity multirotor electric air taxi has concluded that electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft would benefit emergency air rescue services. Now the project is looking to begin operational testing in 2023.

A CityHawk ambulance arrives at an accident scene

Aircraft

CityHawk VTOL to be developed as an aerial EMS vehicle

Although "air ambulance" helicopters are life-savers, they typically can't land in the middle of crowded city streets. The CityHawk aircraft conceivably could, though, which is why it's now being developed with emergency medical response in mind.