By Erin Hicks
FireRescue1 Staff
Juan Cienfuegos wasn’t thinking about starting a new business in 2004 when he worked in his security equipment shop. But when a customer who just happened to be a medic from the Air Force Special Forces showed interest in some of his blinking light buttons, Cienfuegos knew he had an idea for a product the first responder community badly needed.
“I saw he noticed the lights because his eyes got really big,” Cienfuegos said. “I asked him about it and he said he could have used that light in Afghanistan.”
And so began the birth of an idea that would come to fruition in a San Antonio, Texas, company called Southwest Synergistic Solutions. The product: Lights that would create a new way for triaging patients during mass casualty/battlefield situations.
The Emergency/Triage (E/T) lights can be set to the LED colors red, amber, green, and blue (infrared available). They can shine continuously and last three to eight days, or blink and last around seven to twelve days.
The all-in-one E/T Lights may improve the time it takes medics to mark a patient because they will no longer need to dig in their bag for the right device. It can also decrease response time, especially during bad weather conditions or at night because the patients’ treatment priority is more visible.
For those in non combative situations, the lights can also be used to distinguish contaminated patients from non contaminated patients during a chemical or biological incident and/or any situation where you would use a chemical light source.
An added benefit of the E/T lights is that it cuts down on the equipment responders need to carry. It takes more than 70 blue chemical light sticks before you need to replace a battery in the E/T light.
“Medics were using chemical light stick for the purpose of night time triage and it was just too much equipment to be carrying around especially if you’re being shot at,” said Cienfuegos.
The Triage Lights first became available to first responders in early 2010. Check out www.triagelights.com to order, or for more information.