Combined ballast and signalling device for a personal flotation device

Abstract

A counterweight assembly is provided to enhance heads up surface positioning of a person. The assembly includes a weight/ballast member strategically disposed on a cylinder/tank worn by a diver during a dive. The weight member can be attached by several different embodiments. Preferably, the weight member is attached such that the diver cannot release or adjust the weight member while he or she is diving. The weight member rotates the person to ensure heads up surface positioning in the event the person becomes incapacitated. Also provided are several other water safety and survival devices. Also disclosed is a combined ballast and signaling device preferably neutralized by attachment to an eccentrically buoyant personal flotation device.

Description

[0001]This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Ser. No. 09 / 618,333, filed Jul. 18, 2000, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Application Ser. No. 09 / 255,892, filed Jan. 4, 1999, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08 / 645,206 filed May 13, 1996; now U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,454.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]1. Field of the Invention[0003]The invention relates generally to personal flotation devices and particularly to a personal flotation device incorporating a ballast member.[0004]2. Description of the Prior Art[0005]Heretofore, accidental immersion often resulted in death by two causes, aspiration leading to asphyxiation or hypothermia. A life saving system, to be viable for more than a few minutes, must successfully address both of these issues. Current life vests supply the requisite amount of buoyancy to return the victim to the surface, but often require a conscious victim's involvement to keep the airway clear. While it is common practice, a...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0045]Appropriately sized releasable shoulder trim weights offset the operation of the buoyancy compensator underwater, improving swimming position, decreasing frontal area, producing less hydrodynamic resistance and consequently less diver fatigue. Once again, the shoulder trim weight results in a reduction of the consolidated weight belt with its inherent advantage of protecting the diver from accidental loss of all ballast at one time.

[0046]In summary, a multiple chambered life vest can be of a low volume, low lift, and low profile design as long as at least two points in need of buoyancy are covered, behind the neck and at the umbilicus and one point of ballast along the vertical posterior axis. Excessive buoyancy can be extremely detrimental either because the product is not actually worn because it is too bulky or because side righting moments have been created that jeopardize the airway. The separating chamber in the hands of a conscious, capable user can be removed providing a signaling device for facilitating search and rescue efforts or used as a rescue board minimizing the risk associated with attempting to rescue another victim who has become hypoxic. After the initial insult has been survived the user can deploy the incorporated inflatable rescue product that sequentially inflates into a life ring, then rescue board and distress marker and culminates in a raft to remove the victim from the water with its inevitable and often rapid hypothermia. The entire water safety survival system constructed for a single use application could easily fit within the air line seat cushion, dramatically improving survival statistics for accidents at sea.

[0047]The multi-chambered heads up safety vest as adapted for the scuba diver allows for reliable segregation of a variety of high lift surface flotation chambers while underwater. In addition a variable volume dedicated buoyancy compensator allows the diver to further reduce the amount of lift attached to the smallest amount necessary for a particular dive environment. The combination of these two improvements will markedly reduce the largest cause of pulmonary barotrauma, and secondary embolism, a major cause of injury and death in the field of diving.

[0048]The inclusion of a couple of pounds of weight integrated into the posterior axis of the victim's vest will allow the victim to overcome numerous minor righting moments that can place the airway of the exhausted or dist...

Problems solved by technology

It can take hours for available life rafts to round up survivors, often victims wh...

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