Monday, May 11, 2009

When Pigs Fly

I couldn’t resist, that title is just too funny for this blog.

You had better watch out if you’re near Palm Bay, Fl.  If you think running from the cops will get you free then you’d better look twice.  When most people think of flying police the first things that come to mind is in a helicopter, or maybe a cop that decided to earn some extra money as a man shot out of a canon.  What you don’t think of is paragliding.  The city is in a rural area without many roads which of course makes it difficult to get anywhere quickly, and helicopters are not very cost effective to operate especially on the scale required. So the forward thinking chief decided to invest in paragliders.  They cost only about $10,000 a person including equipment and training, and costs over time would not be too bad I’d imagine.  The real question would be how cool would your job be to be a paraglider cop!  Not to mention how odd would it be to call the police and look outside and see one of these come up to you.

I for one think its a good idea, not just for police work but it could be adapted for searches for missing people, securing an area like a wide patrol, and I’m sure there’s a way this could be adapted for tactical response.  Not to mention a rapid response for medical personnel in the same token.  If it takes a cop 45 minutes to get somewhere then it would also take 45 minutes for a medic.  And if someone decides to jump on this idea I’ll go there and be the first one to sign up for it!

 

On a sad but still quite interesting note, Martha Mason of North Carolina died last week.  I’m quite certain you’ve never heard of her but her story is really quite astounding.  Martha was the longest recorded person to survive on an iron lung.  To geek out for just a minute; an iron lung is a non-invasive negative pressure ventilator.  In layman’s terms its a giant tube thats sealed everywhere but the head, the pressure in it lowers under the pressure in the lungs causing the person to breathe in, and then raises the pressure causing the person to breath out.  It gained fame for treatment of polio patients who were left with their diaphragms paralyzed.  It also had the advantage of being very easy to operate for the normal person so a patient could live at home, and being non-invasive it prevented infection like you get from a trach or intubation. 

Long winded explanation I know I kinda ran off with it.  Nevertheless it was an interesting case, Martha could run her own household with only two assistants and even graduated high school and college!

Imagine what your life would be like if you were restrained to a big metal tube for your entire life, would you be able to stay as upbeat as she did?

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