From the AEGIS e-Journal, Volume 4 Number 10, October 2001
ESSEX Victim Rescue Unit (VRU) ESSEX PB&R $375 (10 year service life) 1-618-659-9070 http://www.smokehoods.com/ (http://www.smokehoods.com/VRU_main.htm). It has often been said that while a burglary can cause you harm a fire can put you out of business. Or kill you. Indeed, fire, along with automobile accidents, accidents, and medical emergencies, is one of the major preoccupations of protective work. Since it is the smoke that is liable to kill you in a fire, not the fire itself, smoke masks or hoods are very important to have if you are caught in a fire, and we intend to work our way through several different available devices. The Business and Security e-Journal, October 2001
11 There are two ways to classify these devices. One is by whether they are masks which fit on your face, or hoods that go over your head. The second is whether they filter the air, or contain their own air supply. In looking at filtering systems to evaluate, we have chosen to look only at systems that include the ability to deal with carbon monoxide, as well as particulates and other gases common to modern building fires. The Victim Rescue Unit (VRU) is a hood (as opposed to mask) escape unit that uses its own supply of oxygen, rather than filtering the ambient air. This means you don’t need to worry about whether any particular gas or other contaminant can be filtered. The device was developed by Dupont a decade ago in response to several incidents, including an otherwise survivable (the aircraft was on the ground) aircraft fire that killed 55 people. The U.S. Air Force has over 100,000 of these devices, covering every passenger on its passenger-carrying aircraft. Other government agencies also use them, as do corporate customers, both on corporate aircraft and for protective work. As you might expect, you can’t take the VRU on a commercial flight. The VRU comes in a canvas carrying bag with shoulder strap, and is roughly 9 ½ inches by 8 ½ inches by 1 ¾ inches, and weighs about a pound and a half, which means it is small enough to toss into your carry-on or attaché case when traveling by car or company plane, or your flight bag if you are a pilot, or your desk drawer at work, or the bug-out bag you keep next to your bed at the hotel. The carrying case of the one we tested was a sort of international orange color, making it visible in the day, with a luminous strip visible in the dark. While it has belt loops, it is too big to normally carry on your belt. The device is straightforward. You take the sealed pouch out of the canvas bag, tear open the pouch, remove the hood, turn on the oxygen flow by grabbing the bottle in one hand and the red ball on in the other hand and pulling it, and then put the unit over your head. The hood is made from multiple layers of Teflon® and Kapton® and goes over your entire head. It has an elastic silicon neck seal. There is no front or back to the VRU, eliminating concern as to whether it is on correctly. An advantage of a non-demand oxygen supply (as opposed to a filtered system) is that the VRU can be used with an unconscious or otherwise disabled person, or a small child who might be able to use a mouthpiece but whose lungs are insufficiently developed to draw air through a filter, or an infant. In the case of a baby, you can activate the VRU and stick the baby into the hood, letting it fasten about the infant’s waist. The Business and Security e-Journal, October 2001
12 Our testing was non-scientific, in that we were interested in discovering whether the VRU is practical to use in an emergency situation. We are confident that we would be able to make our way down a smoke-filled stairwell in a hotel or building fire wearing the VRU. 7. Free-Subscription/Unsubscription/Copyright Information •• The Business and Security e-Journal is supported and maintained by voluntary efforts. This publication is owned, published, and copyright © 2001 by The LUBRINCO Group Ltd., Inc., and Financial Examinations and Evaluations, Inc. It is edited jointly by L. Burke Files (LBFiles@lubrinco.com), Mary Clark Fischer (MCFischer@lubrinco.com), and Richard Isaacs, CPP (RBIsaacs@lubrinco.com). Risk management is about increasing productivity and profit. The LUBRINCO Group provides senior executives with specialized risk management assistance in areas that affect domestic and international bottom lines. LUBRINCO provide service in three areas of high risk typically outside the expertise available in-house: • OPSEC: The identification and protection of information that would be of value to your competitors and adversaries. • International financial investigation and due diligence and enhanced due diligence consulting (with particular emphasis on Central and Eastern Europe, the offshore financial centers, Beijing and Shanghai, and Latin America) relating to: o Anti-money laundering and financial fraud issues under the USA Patriot Act and the EU Revised Money Laundering Directive of 2001. o Establishment of business relationships and strategic partnerships. o Location and recovery of substantial (greater than fifty million dollars) missing assets. • Protection of management, staff, and families in the high-risk environments of Latin America, Africa, the Mid-East, and Southeast Asia, and when traveling and living overseas, or when transporting high-value (greater than fifty million dollars) items. For information on The LUBRINCO Group and its services, or for the archive of all past issues of The Business and Security e-Journal in PDF format, please go to http://www.lubrinco.com/ . The Business and Security e-Journal, October 2001
13 To sign up for a complimentary subscription to The Business and Security e- Journal or the Business and Security e-Journal PDF notification list, go to http://lb.bcentral.com/ex/manage/subscriberprefs?customerid=7768 or send an email to ejournal@lubrinco.com. To subscribe to our AvantGo channel, go to http://avantgo.com/channels/_add_channel.pl?cha_id=1773 To be removed from the subscription list, follow the instructions on the mailing you received, or send an e-mail to ejournal@lubrinco.com. If you know of anyone else who should be receiving The Business and Security e-Journal, please send their e-mail address to ejournal@lubrinco.com. If there is a topic in the business and security fields that you would like to know more about, send it to ejournal@lubrinco.com and the editors will consider it as the topic for an article in an upcoming issue. If you would like to submit an article for publication in The Business and Security e-Journal, send it as an attachment to an e-mail to ejournal@lubrinco.com. Submission of an article certifies that (a) all information in the article is in the public record, or (b) that you are authorized to release any personal or corporate proprietary information contained in the article, and (c) that none of the article has previously been copyrighted. The submission of materials for publication in The Business and Security e-Journal constitutes a license to The LUBRINCO Group Ltd., Inc., and/or Financial Examinations and Evaluations, Inc., their assigns, associates, or affiliates, to abridge and/or edit said submission, and to copyright and publish/republish any submitted materials in whatever written and/or electronic form they may choose. If you would like to go beyond normal fair-use in reproducing articles from this issue of The Business and Security e-Journal, you may do so freely as long as appropriate source, copyright, accreditation, and link to the LUBRINCO website is included. This should be in the form
Article Title, from the October 2001 Business and Security e-Journal (© 2001 BSEJ), to be found at http://www.lubrinco.com/ . The e-Journal is a forum for the exchange of information, ideas, operating styles, theories, and related topics for corporate managers who make decisions in areas of high risk typically outside the expertise available in- house, yet which have the potential to affect their company’s domestic and The Business and Security e-Journal, October 2001
14 international bottom lines. Nothing appearing in the e-Journal should be construed as legal advice. The information provided is “general information,” not “specific advice.” The solution to any problem is highly dependent upon the precise facts involved. Thus, before making any reliance upon anything said here, you should consult with an appropriately skilled professional. Opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily endorsed by the publisher, and may be presented to encourage a dialogue among subscribers. The publisher and any re-publisher cannot be held responsible for any loss incurred as a result of the application of any information published in the e-Journal. Please be safe, and be smart.