SAFEXIT offers intriguing building escape system
Easily attached to existing buildings, pulley and harness system carries evacuees down at 3.3 feet per second; devices is attached to a door frame and automatically deploys when an alarm sounds
Video footage of people jumping out of the World Trade Center on 9/11 created an immediate market for highrise escape technologies — chures and ladders, parachutes, helicopters, and even external elevators — all of which were marketed to the high-end, executive user. None, to our knowledge, has beem particularly succesful, in large part due to cost and the fact that the more complex systems could not be easily integrated into existing building architecture. Fortunately, Israel-based SAFEXIT may have found a clever solution to both problems: a “controlled descent device” that allows escape down the outside of the building and can be easily fitted onto buildings old and new.
How it works: The system is attached to a door frame within the office and hidden behind a false door. When a fire alarm sounds, a spring-loaded pulley and harness system punches the door aside and deploys two harnesses — previously attached by steel cable to the ground floor — into a ready-to-use position. A roller mechanism then lowers the evacuees at 3.3 feet per second, with one harness rising towards the office while the other descends, thereby ensuring that at least one is always available for use. “The concept is based on human nature,” said CEO Rafael Salhov. “A person running to get out of the building will naturally head first for the door - right where the system is located. The individual doesn’t need to search for it, install, hang or connect anything.”
-read more in David Bender’s Israel21c report
