Communications: electrical – Condition responsive indicating system – Specific condition
Patent
1998-05-12
2000-10-17
Hofsass, Jeffery A.
Communications: electrical
Condition responsive indicating system
Specific condition
3405734, 340566, 348153, 348159, G08B 2300
Patent
active
061338389
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to a system for monitoring a swimming pool to prevent drowning accidents.
At present, the monitoring of swimming pools is either inexistent or is carried out by human monitoring. This type of monitoring is a difficult task which requires sustained attention and causes the individuals responsible for it, in particular swimming instructors, to suffer nervous fatigue. Indeed, further to the limitations inherent in any system relying on human intervention, for example loss of attention due to fatigue or temporary distraction, the monitoring of swimming pools is made very difficult because of the reflection of light from the surface of the water which is agitated, a phenomenon which makes it difficult to identify visually a motionless body at a depth of a few meters. The problem of monitoring swimming pools arises primarily for swimming pools which are open to the public.
The risk of drowning in a swimming pool occurs primarily when a bather is not sufficiently capable of swimming, for example in the case of a young child or when a swimmer faints.
In the first case, if the swimming pool is monitored, the swimming instructor or individuals close to the bather in distress have their attention attracted by the bather himself, in particular because he will wave his arms while trying to stay on the surface. In the second case, however, the swimmer will lose consciousness without attracting attention from those on duty or those nearby. There are generally two possible outcomes: either the bather exercises the respiratory movement by reflex, in which case his lungs will fill with water, leading to immediate loss of consciousness, or alternatively reflex apnoea will take place and some volume of air will stay trapped in the lungs. In general, a bather who has suffered this type of accident will sink to the bottom but, less commonly, he may also float unconscious in a characteristic position just below the surface of the water.
In the time when consciousness is lost, which marks the onset of drowning, an experienced lifeguard, in particular skilled in expired-air resuscitation, has about two to three minutes to give aid to the victim. If aid is given within this time, the victim will not generally suffer long-term affects from the accident, possibly after staying in hospital to clean out his lungs. In general, if aid is given between three and five minutes after consciousness has been lost, a time which nevertheless varies between individuals, the victim may still be saved but there is a risk of some irreversible damage, in particular to the brain. After five minutes, the risk of death becomes significant.
It has already been proposed, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,043,705, to use sonar for monitoring a swimming pool. According to this device, at least one sonar transmitter/receiver is provided on the bottom of the swimming pool, and a layer is monitored using this equipment. However, a device of this type has a considerable drawback because, in order to install the sonar and connect it to the processing equipment which derives information from the echoes which are received, it is necessary to route cables through the bottom of the swimming pool and below this bottom, which leads to an entirely prohibitive cost if the pool has already been constructed. Moreover, safety rules prohibit the use of voltages in excess of 12 or 24 volts, depending on the country, close to the water in a swimming pool, whereas it is necessary to use voltages of several hundred volts in order to generate sonar pulses. Furthermore, the signal obtained with sonar includes echoes due to the swimming pool walls, and it is extremely difficult to eliminate the noise signal thus obtained in order to make it possible to detect the signal corresponding to the submerged body of a drowning individual. In addition, sonar essentially makes it possible to identify the body of a drowning individual by the volume of air which it contains; if a victim has his lungs filled with water, the signal obtained will not at all conform with what might be expe
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Hofsass Jeffery A.
Poseidon
Tweel , Jr. John
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