Medical Mr. Fix-it
Former aerospace manufacturer invents sensor to keep seniors safe.
For as long as Palm Beacher Jim Reidy can remember, he’s been fascinated by how machines work.
“I’ve always had an intuitively mechanical mind,” said the 62-year-old. “Bikes, radios, lawnmowers, automobiles — when I was a kid, I would always want to take them apart to see how they operated and then put them back together.”
He used those skills to run his family’s aerospace manufacturing company in Long Island, New York, before retiring more than a decade ago.
Since he and his wife, Pat, became full-time South Florida residents in 2007, he enjoys keeping busy by giving back to the community.
He makes Meals on Wheels deliveries at least once a week — and will gladly fill in when another deliverer needs a replacement.
But perhaps where he’s had the biggest impact — and is most in his element — is when he’s volunteering his “fix-it” talents to Clinics Can Help — a charitable West Palm Beach facility whose mission is to redistribute gently used and donated surplus medical equipment and supplies to children and adults in need.
Reidy has been CCH’s voluntary “on-call” repairman since December — when he entered the newly expanded CCH warehouse to donate some equipment and noticed “they didn’t
have anyone in there to fix anything.”
“It’s been wonderful to have Jim and his expertise here at Clinics Can Help,” said CCH founder and CEO Owen O’Neill.
“He is a great asset to our team of volunteers and really believes in the work we are doing to help those in need of medical equipment and supplies.”
Oxygen concentrators, hospital bed controls, mattress inflators, wheelchair components — you name it and Reidy and has refurbished it at CCH’s makeshift workshop.
And while repairing used medical equipment is how Reidy contributes most often to the CCH cause, he also possesses the instincts of an inventor — a talent that benefited his late mother-in-law during the last five years of her life when he created a safety device for her dubbed the Wander Alert.
She kept getting out of bed
Five years ago, Reidy’s then-96-year-old motherin-law was convalescing at home after undergoing surgery that had left her frail and prone to losing her balance — especially when trying to get out of bed.
“She had full-time live-in aides and we tried everything to keep her from hurting herself when getting out of bed,” Reidy explained. “We’d put pressure-sensitive ‘alert’ pads on the floor beside her bed. They were supposed to let the aides know that she was getting out of bed — but by that time, it would be too late. If her feet hit the floor, she would have fallen again.”
That’s when Reidy decided he had to create a sensor device that would detect his mother-in-law’s motion while she was still safely in bed — but nearing the bed’s edge.
Behold the Wander Alert — a tripod-mounted infrared sensor that can be custom-positioned. When Reidy’s mother-in-law’s movement would breach the light beam at the edge of the bed, the device sounded an alarm, giving aides enough time to enter the bedroom and assist their client.
“After I built the device, we used it for the next five years until she died a few months ago and she never fell out of bed again,” he said.
Reidy said that he fashioned the device out of widely accessible components: PVC plumbing pipes; infrared intrusion sensors; cardboard visors; and vinyl shields. The device went through a couple of iterations before Reidy felt he’d perfected it.
The components cost about $30 and Reidy said he can build a Wander Alert in around an hour.
Over the years, he’s built a handful of the devices for friends and relatives who had loved ones that necessitated extra monitoring.
And now he’s making the device available — upon direct request — to the general public in exchange for a $50 taxdeductible contribution to Clinics Can Help.
Despite having fashioned such a nifty device and holding a patent for a hair-dryer holder he manufactured in 2010 — Reidy doesn’t consider himself an inventor.
“I’m not sure that I necessarily invent things, as much as I find solutions to problems. As my motherin-law had more problems moving around, I found more solutions,” he said.