Red Cross Blogs

Save a life – wear a bra

By Katrina Crew
October 8, 2009 at 2:05 pm

No, you didn’t misread that. I was scrolling through the lastest blog posts at the always-fantastic Cross Blog (by the American Red Cross in Oregon) when I read about a life-saving bra.

Cue coffee nearly spraying out of my nose. I wonder if there’s a bra to treat nasal burns. Or maybe a pair of underpants. Hmm, perhaps a pair of tights would work best. There’s a multi-million pound idea in there somewhere.

Dr Elena Bodnar, Raphael Lee, and Sandra Marijan of Chicago, Illinois, have won an Ig Nobel Prize for their invention – a bra that converts into a pair of facemasks (one for the bra-wearer and one for a lucky bystander).

The prize is given “for achievements that first make people LAUGH then make them THINK”. This one certainly made me think. How long would it take to shimmy the bra off without being arrested for indecent exposure? Can you imagine male emergency responders wearing a bra as part of their uniform, just in case?

Although the bra’s my personal favourite, you can check out the other winners, including researchers from the University of Bern, in Switzerland, “for determining — by experiment — whether it is better to be smashed over the head with a full bottle of beer or with an empty bottle”.

I hope they had a look at the Red Cross’ first aid tips section to find out how to deal with bleeding.

Image © Improbable Research, Alexey Eliseev

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Tags: bleeding, first aid tips, prepare for disasters

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 8th, 2009 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Emergencies, First aid. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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