Fluid handling – With leakage or drip collecting
Reexamination Certificate
1998-02-09
2003-05-27
Walton, George L. (Department: 3753)
Fluid handling
With leakage or drip collecting
C604S356000, C137S001000, C137S565010, C137S362000, C141S086000, C141S098000, C220S571000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06568419
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for control of fluids on work area floors. More specifically, the invention relates to methods and disposable apparatus for keeping the footgear and the feet of workers out of fluids that fall to the floor in a work area. In particular, the present invention provides a macro-porous surface upon which workers may stand and through which fluids may easily pass to be collected in a fluid collection vessel underlying the porous material.
BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY
A problem affecting the health and safety of a variety of workers is that of providing a safe, non-slippery, dry area upon which the workers can stand. Hospital operating room personnel are routinely required to stand and work in conditions in which the floor is inundated with several liters of blood, bodily fluids, and saline solution during a single procedure. Drilling, sawing, and other metalworking operations may wet floors with lubricants, coolants, or other liquids and make the nearby floors difficult, unpleasant, or dangerous places to work. Many die casters, chemists, machinists, maintenance workers, and workers in other occupations encounter floor surfaces that are wetted either frequently or periodically any of a substantial variety of release agents, aqueous solutions, cleaning formulations, reagents, waste, spillage, and the like.
Various types of grating structures that support workers above locations where, liquid or fluid, accumulates, or collects, may be fitted on flooring that is routinely wet. Even if puddles do not develop on a work surface floor, a small amount of liquid is frequently enough to make a floor slippery. Floor drains may be required to keep some floors free of puddles. Some other situations, can be improved easily by applying anti-skid materials to the floor. In other instances, a roughened finish may be applied to cast-in-place floor surfaces such as concrete. In some work environments, those remedies may be impractical.
For example, the appearance of some flooring materials can be permanently damaged by spills of materials such as paints, rust, water, or solvents that may be transported or used nearby. A plumber may be required to repair or replace appliances and component lines at locations where expensive carpets are installed. Trays, towels, pans, and drop cloths are often used to protect existing floor covering material on an ad hoc basis, often with a less than desirable outcome because the activity may occur seldom, if ever, at any particular location. Many tradespeople do not routinely provide satisfactory mats or other equipment to catch spills and prevent damage to floors during routine maintenance or in response to needed repairs. Some liquid materials that fall to the floor cannot be safely drained through ordinary floor drains because the materials are chemicals that pose environmental hazards. Other materials that fall to the floor in certain work places can present bio-hazards.
Even in facilities where the floors are routinely wetted, specific conditions can make the use of gratings difficult or impossible. In food handling operations, it may be impossible to clean grating-covered floors with sufficient thoroughness to prevent potential contamination of the product. Likewise, it may be impossible to clean grating surfaces sufficiently frequently and with sufficient thoroughness to prevent contamination and infection of other people, especially those who must work in damp conditions such as those found in hospital operating theaters. It may be necessary to recover the potentially harmful spillage and waste from such workplaces for subsequent treatment, recovery, measurement, incineration, re-processing, or disposal in accordance with applicable laws, policies, and regulations.
Persons skilled in the art of operating room design and in hospital sanitation have long sought ways to reduce the problems caused by the liquid materials that inundate floors in operating rooms and emergency rooms. Although several attempts at creating improved work areas have been made, none has produced a system that is both practical to use and practical to sterilize.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,635,913, issued Jan. 13, 1987; U.S. Pat. No. 4,718,653, issued Jan. 12, 1988; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,811,937, issued Mar. 14, 1989, Rothman disclosed a series of Portable Surgical Drainage Platforms. The inventions he developed could assist surgeons and other surgical staff by supporting the personnel on grating and removing liquid that falls through the grating. The platforms are, however, rather heavy and are also difficult to sterilize at all, especially in the short amount of time that may available between surgeries.
LaRooka received U.S. Pat. No. 4,243,214 on Jan. 6, 1981, for her Irrigation-Debridement-Repair Caddy. That disclosure is directed to an apparatus that can be placed under an extremity of a person during a surgical procedure. The Irrigation-Debridement-Repair Caddy is designed to collect some of the irrigation saline solution and excised tissue that would otherwise drip onto the floor and collect the fluid in a closeable bottle for eventual disposal.
Other workers, such as Gibbs in his U.S. Pat. No. 2,851,311, issued Apr. 22, 1955, have developed a variety of ingenious portable scaffolding and grate-retaining devices.
Presently known methods and apparatus have been unable to implement a solution to the various problems encountered by people who work in areas where wet floors are routinely encountered. In hospital operating rooms, for example, the method for controlling wet floor problems is often merely to scatter disposable absorbent blankets, pads, or mats on the floor. Following the surgery, the absorbent material may be weighed to measure the amount of fluid lost by the patient during the procedure. Typical absorbent blankets are made of materials similar to those used to make disposable diapers. It may readily be appreciated that standing, walking, and working with several pieces of that type of material disintegrating on the floor surface is difficult, at best. Unfortunately, those activities are especially difficult under actual conditions because the considerable activity during a surgical procedure tends to bunch up the absorbent materials. Under these circumstances, the potential for tripping or other accidents is further aggravated because the concentration of workers is directed to matters other than the status of the floors on which they stand.
What is needed, then is a disposable fluid control island for selectably collecting, retaining and draining fluids from the vicinity of the feet of workers comprising a generally broad, shallow, impermeable vessel having a generally horizontal, floor-contacting, bottom portion and a generally vertical peripheral portion, a foot-supporting portion disposed within and substantially filling the vessel, the foot-supporting portion having a top surface spaced apart from the vessel bottom portion by filler comprised of; a vertical compression resisting portion having sufficient resistance to compression to support workers standing on the foot-supporting portion, and a liquid retaining portion comprised of fluid-absorbing material, a link formed at the periphery of the vessel for retaining in proximity to one another an assembly comprised of at least one vessel and at least one other component from the group of components consisting of vessels and inclined transitions, the inclined transitions being positionable at the periphery of a vessel assembly and extending between the floor and the top surface of the foot-supporting portion, and means for closing the apparatus for retaining collected fluids until final disposition of the fluid collecting island is effected.
Embodiments of the present disclosure meet these needs, and more, by solving the long-recognized problem of containing and removing fluids from floors in the vicinity of workers. The present disclosure teaches a disposable, fluid containing and draining vessel filled with porous material having substantial void space that suppo
Ristvedt Dennis
Robinson Allan
Promethean Medical Technologies, Inc.
Schwegman, Lundberg, Woessner & Kluth P.A..
Walton George L.
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