Invento boricua podría salvar vidas por caídas desde cruceros
Un trio de emprendedores puertorriqueños se encuentra en la cúspide de lanzar al mercado un dispositivo que avisaría de inmediato si una persona cae por la borda en un crucero.
El dispositivo, que lleva el nombre de Tadeo (Total Alarm Device for Emergency Only), es la creación de Rafael Alicea Ibern y el ingeniero Steven Henríquez Vargas. El producto consiste de un chip de identificación mediante frecuencias de radio (RFID, por sus siglas en inglés) insertado en una banda que los pasajeros utilizarían al abordar el navío.
Patented man overboard alert system Tadeo uses RFID bracelet
Inventor Rafael Alicea is touting a patented system he hopes will save lives and the high costs of search and rescue operations by immediately detecting people going overboard and pinpointing their exact location.
Alicea was motivated to find a solution to the challenges of detecting people going overboard after a 21-year-old man was lost from a cruise ship off Belize in 2011. Incidents of passengers going overboard from cruise ships are rare but concerning, a matter the industry has been working to address for years.
The missing British cruise-ship entertainer is the fifth man overboard in five weeks
The US Coast Guard’s Atlantic Ocean search for British cruise-ship entertainer Arron Luke Hough was suspended yesterday (Dec. 27), two days after he was reported missing from Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas.
Footage from the vessel’s CCTV system revealed Hough entering an area on Deck 5 in the early hours of the morning, not to be seen again. The search was conducted 267 miles northwest of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, according to the coast guard.
Cruise Industry Ignores Law Requiring Man-Overboard System
The delay in determining when a person goes overboard increases the area which the Coast Guard is required to search by air and sea, and reduces the chances of locating and rescuing the person overboard. It also substantially increases the expenses borne by U.S. taxpayers. The Coast Guard expenses in the Jason Rappe search efforts by the U.S. Coast Guard were almost $1,000,000.
Last year, Congress commented on the cruise industry’s lack of progress in implementing the requires man overboard systems. Congress commented: “the degree to which the cruise industry has complied with this requirement is entirely unclear. There may be additional camera surveillance (but no indication that this is the case), however there has not been adoption of any of the active measures recommended by the International Cruise Victims Association in discussions with the industry prior to the legislation being passed.
Dramatic Cruise Ship Rescue Caught on Video:
A potentially disastrous situation at sea turned into a stunning stroke of luck for a 22-year-old man who fell overboard from a cruise ship and was then rescued later by another passing cruise ship after another passenger heard him calling for help in the open ocean.
The overboard passenger was traveling on the Oasis of the Sea, operated by Royal Caribbean, off the coast of Cozumel, Mexico, during a seven-night cruise that departed from Port Everglades, Florida, Royal Caribbean said in a statement.
He fell overboard sometime in the early morning hours of Jan. 8, officials said.
At about 6:30 a.m., he was then spotted by a Disney Magic cruise ship and picked up in a lifeboat, witnesses said. Disney confirmed the rescue but did not release any other details about the event.
Tello's Tragic Tale
A newspaper in Belize is reporting that a 21 year old cruise passenger went overboard from Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas cruise ship and disappeared today.
7 News Belize reports that the passenger went overboard from the 12th deck of the cruise ship. The passenger's family noticed that he was missing around 9:00 a.m. this morning. When the young man could not be located on the ship, the crew reviewed video from the security cameras that showed him going overboard from the twelfth deck of the ship at 3:25 am. The article indicates that is is unclear whether the passenger jumped or fell.