The web of life , also known as Browder Life Safety Net or leap sheet , is the type of rescue equipment previously used by firefighters. When used in the right conditions, it enables the person on the upper floors of a burning building to jump into a safe place, usually to the ground. Created in 1887, the device was used with varying degrees of success during several important fires in the 20th century. Due to technological progress of the fire department, it became obsolete in the 1980s. Due to their previous prevalence, the web of life is often featured in popular culture as a joke, especially in cartoons where they often appear used during scenes where a fire is occurring.
Video Life net
Inventor
This tool was invented by Thomas F. Browder, born in Greene County, Ohio, in 1847. During the American Civil War, Browder was enrolled in Company C, the 60th Infantry Ohio of the Union Armed Forces at the age of 17 years, and injured at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House on May 9, 1864. He was shot at the waist, sent home the following month, and then out of service. He became a schoolteacher, and later moved to Greenfield, Ohio, where he discovered and patented a network of life in 1887. Browder then opened a laundry business. He obtained an additional patent for improvement on the web of life in 1900, and later also a patent in Europe.
Maps Life net
Design
Browder devices are similar to modern recreational trampolines, developed later in 1936. Among the advantages are that the web of life is always tense when open, never sagging, and has a setting time of only two to three seconds. It used hinges to fold for storage and automatic locking mechanisms when folded. Its opaque cover helps to reduce panic and increase the confidence of the people who have to jump into it. It helped save lives. Some models have a red bullseye in the middle.
Limitations
Firefighters believe that practical height limits for successful use of live webs are about six stories, although in the Chicago fire of 1930, three people survived the eighth story into the web of life. One suffered a skull fracture, and two others suffered minor injuries.
Rescue successfully
On August 19, 1902, the New York City Fire Department rescued his first real life with Browder's live web. During a rescue operation in a tenement house that killed five people, a baby was dropped from a fourth floor fire into a live web, and survived unscathed. On November 10, 1904, three people were rescued as they jumped into the web of life during a fire in New York City. Three others were killed on the top floor of the building. In Anchorage, Alaska, in 1957, a woman dropped her three-year-old daughter into the web of life, and the girl was not hurt; the mother suffered a broken back after jumping into the net.
Failures and issues
Life webs often fail to save people, and sometimes firefighters themselves are injured or killed by falling bodies. According to researcher and writer Cecil Adams, "Leapers sometimes strike something on the street, land on firefighters, or miss it entirely." In November 1910, a fire swept through a factory in Newark, New Jersey, killing 25 people. Among them were four girls who hugged each other as they jumped into the web of life. They ripped his net and were killed. In the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25, 1911, the girls jumped into the living nets from the ninth floor with arms intertwined and the impact of tearing the canvas and tearing the springs from the frame, resulting in their death. Overall, 146 garment workers were killed in the fire. During the Polen Hotel fire in Amsterdam on May 9, 1977, firefighters were unable to spread the life web in a crowded, narrow alley. When the web of life is deployed in a more open area, some hotel guests throw their belongings into the net, and then get hurt as they jump. The others were injured when they hit the edge of the net. Overall, 33 people were killed in the blaze.
Outbound fas
In 1958, a firefighter in Eugene, Oregon objected, saying that the term "web of life" is misleading, and that they should be used only as a last resort. Until late 1961, though, the Chicago Fire Department still emphasized the life web in its training program. However, modern air equipment (a type of air work platform) often known as ladder trucks has made life obsolete clean, because these ladder appliances allow firefighters to perform safer rescues, at higher altitudes and with smaller crew.. Adams has concluded that the network of life is no longer mentioned after 1983, and writes that they are not discussed in the current fire fighting training manual. Many examples of life webs are on display in history museums of fire brigades.
References
External links
- My.FirefighterNation.com: Fire Safety Net... Are they gone and why? - Many live mesh photos used
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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