“There is no good that can come from these incidents unless we make a positive change.”
The words were spoken by St. Paul (MN) Fire Chief Tim Butler as he stood next to Lisa Kline, the daughter of Margaret Kuehn, whose life ended tragically in June of 2009 in nearby St. Paul neighborhood when she was struck and killed by a St. Paul Fire Department ambulance. The event was an emotional press conference held last Tuesday.
Butler, along with members of the Kuehn family, stood inside Station 8 to makr a milestone both those involved in the tragedy of 2009 and fire departments around the country.
St. Paul Fire Captain Jovan Palmieri, along with Mike Brusseau of BackSafe Systems, Inc. presented Butler and the St. Paul Fire Department with the first of what promises to be over 70 lifesaving back-up systems that will prevent another incident like the one that took Kuehn’s life.
At the time of the accident, Palmieri had already been working on a device to allow a spotter to stand well behind a fire truck or ambulance and wirelessly transmit a signal to the driver that his backup path was clear. After Kuehn’s death, Palmieri enlisted the help of electrical engineering students at Minnesota State University-Mankato. Over the course of several years, the new system called “The Guardian” by BackSafe Systems, is being installed in emergency response vehicles around the country.
“There are hundreds of people who are backed over and killed. There are thousands injured every year,” said Palmieri. “And a lot of the people getting backed over are the spotters that the driver knows they’re back there. They just lose track of them in the mirrors and the person trips behind the truck and falls down or slips on the ice they’re not able to tell the driver to stop in time. So this will give them an instant stop signal if something like that were to happen.”
BackSafe Systems President Mike Brusseau presented the St. Paul Fire Department with a Guardian device with serial number 1 for it to use in the very firehouse that is home to the rescue vehicle that struck Margaret Kuehn.
“I’m very honored that they remembered my mom, and it’s still in their thoughts and they’re doing this in her honor to help preventing this in the future,” said Kline after accepting the unit’s handset from Brusseau. A moment later, she handed the handset to Butler.
As Butler motioned to the large fire apparatus behind the press conference podium, he announced that the system had already been installed in the truck on display, which was to be the first of more than 70 St. Paul Fire Department rescue vehicles now slated to have the Guardian by BackSafe Systems installed.
“We are in the business of saving lives, not taking them,” Butler said.
BackSafe’s Brusseau says the technology can be used for more than just fire departments and is excited about the lifesaving capability of the small on-dash screen and orange handset device. According to Brusseau, the Guardian is already getting the attention of multiple industries such as public works, warehousing, trucking, and construction.
The Eden Prairie,