Computer saves girl from drowning

[At0mic]

This is pretty impressive stuff

A young girl has become the first swimmer in the UK to be saved from drowning by a computerised pool monitoring system.

The accident happened last Wednesday afternoon when a 10-year old girl in Bangor swimming pool in North Wales sank to the bottom of the deep end.

The Poseidon monitoring system installed in the pool registered that a swimmer was in distress because she was at the bottom of the pool and not moving, and within three seconds sounded the alarm to the lifeguard on duty who pulled the girl out of the water. See the pictures from the system's cameras here.

The girl was resuscitated and taken to a hospital, where she recovered. Less than 40 seconds elapsed from the system alert of the drowning to the victim being pulled from the pool.

Gwynedd Council installed the system at the pool for £65,000 two years ago. Built in the 1960s, the 33 metres long pool ranges in depth from 1.1 to 3.8 meters, making it one of the deepest in Wales.

The system alerts lifeguards that something suspicious is happening in real time and notifies them of the exact location of the incident. It comprises a network of cameras mounted both above and below water level to monitor swimmers' trajectories.

François Marmion, general manager of Vision IQ, the company which developed Poseidon, said in a statement: "It is virtually impossible for lifeguards to see everything that is happening in the pool all of the time, given the warm, noisy and crowded environment in which they typically work".

Source

Edited September 1, 2005 by At0mic

[cheezus420]

WOW, thats amazing!!! proof that computers can be usefull That must be some pretty impressive software is that system to be able to reconize that so quickly... I wonder how many false alarms there are??? Cool post!!!

[Crispy]

Clever use of a computer... cheers to whoever invented it

[Jeremy]

Even a complete id*** knows Bill Gates was nowhere near the development team of that software.

[Andromeda43]

What an amazing system.....but 65,000 pounds?

Heck, that's more than most people spend to have their home pools installed and filled.

S'pose there's a cheaper version for the home pool or Hotel/Motel pool?

More than a dozen children die in home pools here in the Sun State every year.

Many of those pools didn't even have a fence around them,,,,let alone a system like Poseidon. People really need to WATCH their kids.

Thanks, AtOmic, for the post,

Andromeda43

[redder]

That was really useful, but it also proves that no one was paying real attention to the pool

[HyperHacker]

Yeah, I'd be a little uncomfortable if I went to a pool and all the lifeguards were just sitting there using computers. It's neat, but it'd be better if they had some kinda robot to pull people out.

And of course you have to convince people to swim around in skimpy bathing suits with a bunch of cameras under the surface watching them.

[Hatefulsorrow]

Nice. Thanks At0mic

[Maleko]

Now thats good stuff!

[Ven]

the power of computer.. buts thats a steep price..

[cyanide]

not steeper than someone's life dude...

[sven]

nice, good thing that was there. thats a massive pool!

joke: we know thats not a windows machine:P

[amfony]

what about people going for a quick whizz in the deep end? They will be all over the internet in a matter of seconds!! hahaha

im more impressed with the camera LENS and the pictures themselves then the computer-ness

thats some clear pic-tizzles

[nil]

What about people going for a quick whizz in the deep end? They will be all over the internet in a matter of seconds!! hahaha

Maybe they've got an 'Instant Karma' extension module, which pipes the offender's mug shot to a poolside big screen.

[Press any key]

That was really useful, but it also proves that no one was paying real attention to the pool

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Mmmm. I thought she was going to be in the sea and an old monitor floated by, and she grabbed hold of it as a buoy.

My thinking is based on the fact that the oceans of the world may soon be littered with old floating computer parts!

But maybe that just an old fishermans tale..