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Office of News and Information
Johns Hopkins University
901 S. Bond Street, Suite 540
Baltimore, Maryland 21231
Phone: (443) 287-9960 | Fax (443) 287-9920

May 21, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Phil Sneiderman
(443) 287-9960
prs@jhu.edu


Students Develop Safety Vest
Design May Prevent Car Crash Injuries



Three senior engineering students have created a harness and vest system to better protect people with osteoporosis and other brittle bone disorders, a system that significantly reduced impact forces when tested on a high-tech crash test dummy.

The students were responding to a challenge from the Center for Injury Research and Policy in the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins. "We estimate that as many as 13 million people with osteoporosis, osteogenesis impefecta (brittle bone disorder) and hemophilia need some additional protection from forces applied to the torso during a car crash," said Gary S. Sorock, an associate professor at the center. "The assignment was to design and test a restraint system that would reduce these forces, protecting the ribs and the sternum in particular."

During their two-semester Engineering Design Project course in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, the team of three seniors addressed this challenge. The team designed a vest filled with three layers of foam padding, each with a different density, to absorb some of the energy that causes a motorist's chest to compress during a crash. In people with weakened bones, this compression can lead to broken ribs and other serious internal injuries.

To learn more about this system, and see it being tested, watch this short video news release.

Watch the video in Windows Media format.

Watch the video in Real Media format.

To learn more about this research, read the press release.


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If you have any problems viewing these presentations or downloading the RealPlayer, please contact Glenn Small at,
e-mail glenn@jhu.edu.

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