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Air Bag Jacket Saves Life Of Motorcyclist
This story is a little out of date, but I finally have the reference for it. In 2007, Joseph McPhatter of Randallstown, MD was in a crash on Interstate 83 after being cut off by another motorist.
According to police reports, McPhatter was ejected 100 feet, hitting the ground at an estimated 140 miles per hour.
And yet he survived, probably due to his Impact Jacket, which inflates like an airbag when a motorcyclist is in a wreck, with nothing more than sore ribs and bruised knees.
(Impact Jacket video)
Neal Stephenson fans with excellent memories will remember something similar - an airbag jacket from his 1992 novel Snowcrash:
she jerks the manual release on her cervical collar and goes into full Michelin Man mode as tiny gas cartridges detonate in several strategic locations around her bod. The biggest one goes off like an M-80 at the nape of her neck, unfurling the coverall's collar into a cylindrical gasbag that shoots straight up and encases her entire head. Other airbags go off around her torso and pelvis, paying lots of attention to that spinal column...
From WBAL Baltimore and Impact Jacket website; thanks to Dennis Kelly for the tip and the reference.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 6/23/2009)
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