Life net
{{Short description|Type of rescue equipment formerly used by firefighters}}
{{about||the nets deployed at high structures designed to catch persons after a fall|Safety net}}
File:Woman jumps from Winecoff Hotel.jpg into a life net. This photo won a Pulitzer Prize in 1947. She survived with serious injuries.]]
File:Vancouver firemen jumping into life net (HS85-10-22258).jpg fireman jumping into life net (1910)]]
A life net, also known as a Browder Life Safety Net or jumping sheet,{{cite encyclopedia
| last = Swarbrick
| first = Nancy
| title = Fires and fire services
| encyclopedia = Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand
| date = September 28, 2011
| url = http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/fires-and-fire-services/2/3
| access-date = October 13, 2012}} is a type of rescue equipment formerly used by firefighters. When used in the proper conditions, it allowed people on upper floors of burning buildings an opportunity to jump to safety, usually to ground level. Invented in 1887, the device was used with varying degrees of success during several notable fires in the 20th century. Due to advances in firefighting technology, it became obsolete by the 1980s. Owing to their former prevalence, life nets often feature in popular culture as a running gag, especially in cartoons where they often appear in use during scenes where a fire is taking place.
Inventor
The device was invented by Thomas F. Browder, born in Greene County, Ohio, in 1847. During the American Civil War, Browder enlisted in the Company C, 60th Ohio Infantry of the Union Army at the age of 17, and was wounded at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House on May 9, 1864. He was shot through the hip, sent home the following month, and later discharged from the service. He became a school teacher, and later moved to Greenfield, Ohio, where he invented and patented the life net in 1887. Browder later opened a laundry business. He obtained additional patents for improvements to the life net in 1900, and later also patents in Europe.{{cite book
| last = Klise, J. W.
|author2=Hough, A. E.
| title = The County of Highland: A History of Highland County, Ohio, from the Earliest Days; With Special Chapters on the Bench and Bar, Medical Profession, Educational Development, Industry and Agriculture, and Biographical Sketches
| publisher = Northwestern Historical Association
| year = 1902
| location = Madison, Wisconsin
| pages = [https://archive.org/details/countyhighlanda00houggoog/page/n254 252]–253
| url = https://archive.org/details/countyhighlanda00houggoog
| quote = Thomas F. Browder.
}}
Design
Browder's device was similar to a modern recreational trampoline,{{cite web
| last = Adams
| first = Cecil
| author-link = Cecil Adams
| title = Did firemen once use nets to rescue people from burning buildings?
| work = The Straight Dope
| date = July 8, 2011
| url = http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3004/did-firemen-once-use-nets-to-rescue-people-from-burning-buildings
| access-date = December 12, 2011}} which was developed later in 1936. Among its advantages were that the life net was always taut when open, never slackened, and had a setup time of only two to three seconds. It used hinges to fold for storage and an automatic locking mechanism when unfolded. Its opaque cover helped reduce panic and increase the confidence of people who had to jump into it. The device helped save many lives.{{cite book
| title = Insurance Engineering: Devoted to the Science of Diminishing Hazards to Property and Life
| publisher = The Insurance Press
| year = 1902
| location = New York City
| pages = 308–309
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=zw7OAAAAMAAJ&q=fireman%27s+net+Browder&pg=PA308
}} Some models had a red bullseye in the center.
Limitations
Firefighters believed that the practical height limit for successful use of life nets was about six stories, although in a 1930 Chicago fire, three people survived jumps from an eighth story into a life net. One suffered a skull fracture, and the other two had minor injuries.In Newark, NJ in 1955, a would-be suicide was successfully caught in a life net after jumping from an eighth story window.
Successful rescues
File:Carl Pippich-Ringtheater.jpg
On August 19, 1902, the New York City Fire Department conducted its first real-life rescue with the Browder life net. During rescue operations at a tenement fire that killed five people, a baby was dropped from a fourth-floor fire escape into a life net, and survived uninjured.{{cite news
| title = Five Lives Lost in an East Side Fire: Thrilling Rescues Amid Scenes of IntenseE xcitement
| newspaper = New York Times
| location = New York City
| date = August 20, 1902
| url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1902/08/20/118476060.pdf
| access-date = December 25, 2011}} On November 10, 1904, three people were saved when they jumped into a life net during a fire in New York City. Three other people died on the top floor of the building.{{cite news
| title = Three Burned to Death in Up-Town Night Fire; Flames in Apartment House "Mushroomed" on Top Floor - Three Jump into Life Net
| newspaper = New York Times
| location = New York City
| date = November 11, 1904
| url = https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1904/11/11/120272817.pdf
| access-date = December 24, 2011}} In Anchorage, Alaska, in January 1957, a woman dropped her three-year-old daughter into a life net, and the girl was uninjured; the mother suffered a broken back after jumping into the net.{{cite news
| title = A Desperate Drop
| newspaper = Life magazine
| location = New York City
| page = 33
| date = January 28, 1957
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=K1QEAAAAMBAJ&q=fireman%27s+net&pg=PA33
| access-date = December 24, 2011}}
The most intensive use of life nets was conducted in a large scale operation by the Berlin fire brigade during and right after construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, when a large number of people jumped from houses in the Soviet sector onto the life nets of the West Berlin fire brigade on the pavement that was part of the western sector of Berlin.{{Cite web |title=Berliner Feuerwehr: 1961 – Einsätze an der Mauer |url=https://www.berliner-feuerwehr.de/ueber-uns/historie/historische-einsaetze/1961-einsaetze-an-der-mauer/ |access-date=2023-01-11 |website=www.berliner-feuerwehr.de}}
Failures and problems
Life nets often failed to save people, and sometimes firefighters themselves were injured or killed by falling bodies. According to researcher and writer Cecil Adams, "Leapers sometimes struck something on the way down, landed on a fireman, or missed entirely." In November 1910, a fire swept through a factory in Newark, New Jersey, killing 25 people. Among them were four girls who held onto each other when they jumped into a life net. They tore the net apart and were killed.{{cite news
| title = 25 GIRLS PERISH IN FACTORY FIRE: Leap to Death From Windows or Die in the Flames. PENNED ON IRON ESCAPES Wild Rush for Safety as Blaze Sweeps Old Building. 50 ARE SENT TO HOSPITALS Terror-Stricken Employes of Newark, N. J., Companies Throw Themselves to Sidewalk or Stand in Fear at Windows Until Flames End Their Lives. Others, Caught on Fire Escapes, Are Burned to Death -- Six Persons Still Reported Missing -- Bodies Found Huddled on Floor After Fire Is Extinguished -- One Victim Killed by Fright.
| newspaper = Washington Post
| location = Washington, DC
| date = November 27, 1910
| url = https://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/250115582.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Nov+27%2C+1910&author=&pub=The+Washington+Post+(1877-1922)&edition=&startpage=1&desc=25+GIRLS+PERISH+IN+FACTORY+FIRE
| archive-url = https://archive.today/20130131193053/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/250115582.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Nov+27,+1910&author=&pub=The+Washington+Post+(1877-1922)&edition=&startpage=1&desc=25+GIRLS+PERISH+IN+FACTORY+FIRE
| url-status = dead
| archive-date = January 31, 2013
| access-date = December 25, 2011}} In the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25, 1911, girls jumped into life nets from the ninth floor with their arms intertwined and the impact ripped the canvas and tore the springs from the frame, resulting in their deaths.{{cite news
| last = McFarlane
| first = Arthur E.
| title = Fire and the Skyscraper: The Problem of Protecting the Workers in New York's Tower Factories
| newspaper = McClure's Magazine
| pages = 479
| date = September 1911
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=Gy1mCpluqEoC&q=fireman%27s+net+Browder&pg=PA479
| access-date = December 14, 2011}} In all, 146 garment workers were killed in that fire. During the Hotel Polen fire in Amsterdam on May 9, 1977, firefighters could not successfully deploy a life net in a narrow, congested alley. When a life net was deployed in a more open area, some hotel guests threw their luggage into the net, and were then injured when they jumped. Others were injured when they hit the rim of the net. In all, 33 people died in that fire.{{cite web | url=http://www.nbdc.nl/cms/show/id=648965 | title=Rapport Brand Hotel Polen Amsterdam | publisher=Nationaal Brandweer Documentatie Centrum | date=December 1977 | access-date=December 11, 2011 | page=21|language=nl}}
Phase out
Image:Roskilde S1.jpg, Denmark (2007)]]
In 1958, a fire department official in Eugene, Oregon expressed reservations, saying that the term "life net" was misleading, and that they should be used only as a last resort.{{cite news
| title = Jump out of the Fire Into the Net Only as a Final Resort
| newspaper = Eugene Register-Guard
| location = Eugene, Oregon
| date = April 13, 1958
| url = https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1310&dat=19580413&id=PxBWAAAAIBAJ&pg=6733,1828563
| access-date = December 12, 2011}} As late as 1961, though, the Chicago Fire Department still emphasized the life net in its training programs.{{cite news
| title = World's Finest Fire Academy: Blaze conscious Chicago trains firemen in $2-1/2 million building
| newspaper = Ebony
| location = Chicago
| pages = 58–64
| publisher = Johnson Publishing Company
| date = September 1961
| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=rJ-_1mmkDwYC&q=%22Life+net%22+fire+jump&pg=PA58
| access-date = December 12, 2011}} However, the modern aerial apparatus (a type of aerial work platform) often known as a ladder truck has made the life net obsolete, as this ladder equipment makes it possible for firefighters to carry out rescues more safely, at greater heights and with smaller crews. Another piece of equipment, which started to phase out the life net (especially in European countries, such as Austria and Germany) are inflatable jumping cushions, which absorb the energy of a person due to the air inside the cushion being forced out by the impact. Adams has concluded that the life net was no longer mentioned after 1983, and writes that they are not discussed in current training manuals for firefighters. Many examples of life nets are on display in firefighting historical museums.
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://my.firefighternation.com/forum/topics/fire-department-safety-nets-did-they-go-away-and-why My.FirefighterNation.com: Fire Department Safety Nets... Did they go away and why? - many photos of life nets in use]