Fire escape shrub

In a house fire, it often becomes necessary to jump from an upper window.

This can result in serious, sometimes fatal, injury.

Fire crews carry trampoline-like sheets for victims to jump into, or use ladders.

But sometimes there's no alternative to just jumping.

The prescient householder, however, will have invested in one of the new range of BorgCo fire escape shrubs. Simply plant your purchase according to the plans supplied, or place the tub appropriately.

Once the shrub is established it will be nothing more than another bit of anonymous garden greenery, but this is deceptive. Within the foliage is a hidden network of curved polymer tubes covered in closed-cell foam, and cross-linked by an elastic mesh. Thus, a human body falling onto the shrub from a vertical height of up to three metres will be effectively but firmly decelerated to a stop with a minimum of injury. There are no sharp points or edges in either the plant or the support structure, so there is no risk of impalement or cuts, only bruises.

The system is particularly recommended to those who, by virtue of their fascination with combustion and a predilection for carrying out dangerous and inadvisable experiments in an unsuitable domestic setting, resulting in the occasional outbreak of minor uncontained fires, may find themselves in need of an alternative escape route.