Hello Everyone, I am new to this forum and want to start a discussion regarding light beacons. I know this forum is mostly focused on lights designed for illumination but I invented a signaling light for our combat medics to help prioritize wounded soldiers in the battlefield. Back in 2004 a gentleman walked into my security shop and noticed some novelty button flashers (the round ones with small magnets), we spoke and he commented he could have used something like that in Afghanistan, that it would have helped his men. I asked him who he was and he stated he was a combat medic with JSOC. His situation was he was carrying four bags of chemical light sticks among his equipment, attending to his wounded all while being shot at and that is was simply too much stuff to carry. He wanted something in one hand, one bag to tag his soldiers. Many prototypes and three years later I had a prototype version manufactured in a limited quantity. Those were combat proven and reportedly worked "admirably". I took the feedback received from STS unit regarding the first manufactured version and incorporated the suggested improvements in the version that is available today. I call the lights E/T Lights which originally stood for Emergency/Triage. There are two main versions available. The combat/tactical version includes Infrared/Red/Green/Blue, the civilian version includes Red/Yellow/Green/Blue.
Basically the E/T Light is a chemical light stick replacement. In a combat environment it is important to have the ability to turn off any lights you have on at any time, something you cannot do with chemical light sticks. Another issue with chemical lights is that if you only need a few minutes worth of low light you must consume the entire chemical lights life. That is another dollar in the trash somewhere. If you use chemical lights for perimeter marking you constantly have to go around and crack new chemical lights over and over again. A comment that is sometimes made is "Why pay $35 when I can pay $1 for a chemical light". I have learned that the chemical light is not only $1, there are many hidden costs associated with them. Including that they have to be continually replaced and disposed of, chemical lights occupy more space than E/T lights do so soldiers/responders carry less weight and volume when responding utilizing E/T Lights, facilities hold less merchandise and logistically you ship smaller packages. As a minor example of the number of chemical light sticks consumed by our government go to USASPENDING.GOV and type in Cyalume. Here is the link:
http://www.usaspending.gov/search?query=&searchtype=&formFields=eyJTZWFyY2hUZXJtIjpbImN5YWx1bWUiXX0=
That is over $39 million in almost ten years and this number does not include the purchases made at the unit level by our military.
You may learn more about the lights and the many applications at my website
WWW.triagelights.com. All feedback, suggested uses, marketing ideas are welcome. I have much more information available including the newest versions that are programmable in the field that contain 15 different modes to function, including 4 strictly IR modes for the IR versions and the grenade/light distraction mode found on both versions 6.8IR and 6.8A.
If you want to see how tough the E/T Lights are scroll down the home page and read the "Drop, car drag, freeze in dry ice, boil, drop in a stream for 3 days, etc.. test results"
I look forward to your thoughts and comments.
