with all the advancements in gps these days you would think they could come up with a small device that clips to your vest.
it could work something like this:
clipped to the bottom of the vest and water activated. once the device is "waterlogged" it sends out a distress signal.
now whomever is receiving the signal, whether it be the tournament officials, or the local authority, could know there is a problem.
if the boaters are safe and able to get back on the boat they could simply call and let whomever know everything is ok. or maybe there could be a shut off switch on the device itself.
but if they do not respond, they could be located via gps by the tournament officials, local authority, or whomever.
just an idea.
reminds me of the whole on star thing. believe it or not, i invented on star. or something very similar to it. but it was 3 years before on star was introduced.
the idea came to me while working night shift in troy and making the long drive back to highland. i took 1-75 very late at night. actually, very early in the morning. i was usually 3:00 am. i would see cars flipped on the side of the road, or in the median. and there was literally no one around. i would stop and check it out and most of the time i would find an empty car. but one time there was a man upside down, still strapped in and bleeding from the head and mouth and unconcious.
i ran back to my truck and called 911. police were there first and an ambulance shortly after. after about 20 minutes they pulled his lifeless body from the car and put him into a body bag.
i had to stay for a while and give a report on exactly what i saw and did upon arriving to the scene. the cop told me that the man had been there for a while because his engine was cold.
one of the perimedics said nothing is certain until they do an autopsy but he believed that the man died because he suffered a blow to the head which would cause his brain to swell but being upside down and having so much blood rushing to his head put too much pressure on his brain.
whether or not this is true, i dont know. but he did say that if that was the case it probably wouldnt have been a fatality had soemone got to him sooner.
i got to thinking as i sometimes do. there are sensors in automobiles that tell airbags to go off. why couldnt the same sensor go off and alert 911 dispatch. then the 911 dispatch could pinpoit the location of the vehicle using gps.
what if a woman crashed her car in the winter time, flipped it several time and broke out the windows? what if the woman was unconcious? what if the temperatures were below freezing? what if she also had an infant in a child seat? what if all this happened late at night on a remote road?
seems to me there is something we could come up with. we put so much into technology to help us find fish, or find our way back to the launch. shouldnt we be taking steps to ensure our own safety?
madman himself