Life Saver
by Lilliana Mendez
Title
Life Saver
Artist
Lilliana Mendez
Medium
Photograph - Photographs
Description
The most ancient examples of primitive life jackets can be traced back to inflated bladders of animal skins or hollow, sealed gourds, for support when crossing deep streams and rivers. Purpose-designed buoyant safety devices consisting of simple blocks of wood or cork were used by Norwegian seamen.
Personal flotation devices were not part of the equipment issued to naval sailors until the early 19th century, for example at the Napoleonic Battle of Trafalgar, although seamen who were press-ganged into naval service might have used such devices to jump ship and swim to freedom.[citation needed]
It was not until lifesaving services were formed that the personal safety of boat crews heading out in pulling boats in generally horrific sea conditions was addressed. The modern life jacket is generally credited to one Captain Ward, a Royal National Lifeboat Institution inspector in the United Kingdom, who created a cork vest in 1854 to be worn by lifeboat crews for both weather protection and buoyancy.
The rigid cork material eventually came to be supplanted by pouches containing watertight cells filled with kapok, a vegetable material. These soft cells were much more flexible and comfortable to wear compared with devices utilizing hard cork pieces. Kapok buoyancy was used in many navies fighting in World War II. Foam eventually supplanted kapok for 'inherently buoyant' (vs. inflated and therefore not inherently buoyant) flotation.[1]
The University of Victoria in British Columbia pioneered research and development of the "Floater Coat" (patented UVic Thermo Float PFD), which provides superior protection from immersion hypothermia for wears forced into cold water by incorporating a neoprene rubber "diaper" that seals the user's upper thigh and groin region from contact with otherwise cold, flushing and debilitating water.
During World War II, research to improve the design of life jackets was also conducted in the UK by Edgar Pask OBE, the first Professor of Anaesthesia at Newcastle University. His research involved self-administered anaesthesia as a means of simulating unconsciousness in freezing sea-water. Pask's work earned him the OBE and the description of "The bravest man in the RAF never to have flown an aeroplane
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August 30th, 2014
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