Snow death inspires invention

"Suffocation comes on pretty quick if you don’t have something to help you breathe under there."

Stuart Julian

The death of a friend in the mountains started New Plymouth’s Stuart Julian on a quest to give the next person trapped in snow a chance.

The 29-year-old is one of 16 recipients of the AMP National Scholarship who have been awarded $10,000 towards their ideas. His emergency breathing device will enable people trapped in the snow to breathe, he said.

‘‘A friend of mine passed away in the mountains without a device like this being available, and that’s kind of where the idea started.

‘‘Suffocation comes on pretty quick if you don’t have something to help you breathe under there.’’

The keen outdoorsman is a mechanical engineer at Worley Parsons who spent five years in Canada working for a GPS development company at ski resorts.

It was at Whistler Blackcomb where a friend, an experienced ski instructor, got trapped in a tree well, a void or area of loose snow around the trunk of a tree hidden by deep snow, Julian said.

‘‘She suffocated under the snow,’’ he said. ‘‘I was at the bottom of the hill at the time. What it did to us, it made myself and my partner and some of our friends, it made us really aware of the dangers that exist for skiing.’’

Julian said he’d also found out that 20 per cent of snow sport deaths happened from suffocation under the snow. ‘‘That was really the motive, and that event because that statistic kind of scared me a little bit and I wanted to do something about it.’’

The device works by allowing people under snow to breathe. Julian is hoping to ultimately have his device incorporated into other brands’ outdoor wear or available as an accessory.

There is a filter and then a long tube that leads to a series of valves, which allows the user to breathe with the filter stopping any snow getting through. Then the person exhales out a different area so the snow does not melt and harden up.

He said he already had a prototype device, but had only entered the scholarship programme ‘‘on a whim’’. ‘‘I didn’t really expect much from it.’’

Julian said he has a patent pending and the device is for anyone in the snow - from skiers and snowboarders to alpine road safety staff.

‘‘It’s starting to take shape. Right now I’m starting to look at a few designs and a few names I can trademark and that sort of thing,’’ he said. ‘‘I’m hoping to have at least the look and the feel of the final device before the end of the year, and then I really want to have some kind of company or at least a product to start selling by the end of the North American winter.’’