The Ottawa 67’s have joined forces with a former bomb disposal officer now applying his expertise to the hockey rink to mitigate the damage of concussions.
Danny Crossman, 39, is an Ottawa entrepreneur who served with the British Army in Iraq, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. He’s now chief executive of Impakt Protective, a local startup company that has developed a simple, affordable hockey helmet sensor.
The Shockbox instantly alerts team officials — or parents — when a player suffers a dangerous blow to the head.
The sensor uses Bluetooth wireless technology to send data on the magnitude of a head shot to subscribers’ smart phones.
The data is processed by a web-based application, which issues a colour-coded message: Orange indicates a player’s head has been subjected to the kind of rapid acceleration — a g-force of 90 or more — that often results in a concussion. Yellow indicates a player has taken a hit of 60 to 90 g’s, which raises concern particularly if the player has a history of concussions.
The invention promises to take some of the guesswork out of deciding when to sit a player down for an assessment.
“The key thing is getting people to be checked,” says the British-born Crossman.
“Science has pointed out that there’s no magic number for concussion thresholds, but there is a general range where many seem to occur. So we’ve focused on that: it means if the sensor goes off, you should at least check the kid.”
The Shockbox is already being used by several varsity hockey teams in Ontario, including at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University.
This past week, the Ottawa 67’s had the device glued to the top of some of their practice helmets. The sensor is about the size of a large USB flash drive.
“It’s a step forward,” says 67’s athletic trainer Neil Hoch. “It’s another tool — and you can’t have enough tools when it comes to head injuries,”
Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Ottawa+entrepreneur+Shockbox+helmet+sensor+acts+mitigate+concussion+damage/5773023/story.html#ixzz1f7kVCsbG
No comments:
Post a Comment