A vacuum cleaner crevice tool is typically a long, slim, flattened tube used when removing dust, dirt and other items from narrow or restricted areas.
Large expanses of ice – snowfields or glaciers – frequently contain deep cracks called crevasses. The unwary or simply unfortunate explorer can easily fall into such a crack, particularly when bridged by snowpack, which can be extremely dangerous if not fatal.
Retrieving someone from this situation is rarely simple or easy and may significantly imperil the rescuers.
To address this issue, BorgCo have developed a specialised vacuum cleaner crevasse tool.
At the top is a power unit containing one or more jet engines. These can be repurposed simple axial flow turbines, or high-bypass turbofans. The power unit can be freestanding, or attached to another component of the system which is a tracked long-reach bucket excavator; attached to the excavator arm is a 1m diameter hoop-reinforced flexible hose, the other end of which attaches to the jet intake.
When the victim is located in the crevasse, the assembly is driven as close as possible to the edge of the crevasse (which can be performed by remote control if considered appropriate for “safety” reasons) and the jet(s) are started which generates tremendous suction within the tube.
The tube is then positioned above the victim, who is thus entrained in the airflow and quickly and efficiently removed from the crevasse.
DeLuxe version has the extra cost option of a sturdy net interposed between the upper end of the tube, and the jet intake.-- 8th of 7, Jan 03 2021 How to fall down a crevasse and try to at least not make the situation worse. https://www.bbc.com...-antarcticas-deaths [bs0u0155, Jan 04 2021] If you refuse to spring for the DeLuxe version, just the once, yes.-- 8th of 7, Jan 03 2021 Well, if you're keen on finding out, we offer a free trial service. If you'll be good enough to insinuate yourself into a suitable crevasse, and send us the coordinates, we'll bring the equipment along reasonably promptly* and see if we can extract you.
*It would probably be wise to take a packed lunch and a hot drink, and wear warm clothing. Oh, and in the event that the recovery process is successful**, don't forget to choose either interment or cremation.
Then again, we could just drop you back down the crevasse - you could become a valued component*** of the sales demonstration team.
**And you also elect to pay the premium for the DeLuxe version, rather than being sprayed over two hectares**** of nearby icefield in the form of humanberry jam.
***"Component" rather than "member", as you'd actually have to be still alive to be a member.
****Wind velocities can go down as well as up; past results are not a guarantee of future performance.-- 8th of 7, Jan 03 2021 TL;DR; giant inflatable horizontal poles dangle rescue lines into crevass without sinking in; alternate version: sensor equipped drones that can dig in snow fly to bottom of crevasse and bring rescue line with them, they dig and see until they find the person.
long version: This makes me think of a butterfly bandage crevasse rescue device. A buttterfly bandage looks sort of like an oar with two paddles, only the paddles are huge!
just throw; or have a machine or drone throw/transport the other side of the butterfly bandage to the other surface side of the crevasse. Press the button and it autoinflates sort of like an automotive airbag. You now have a a gaint puffy snowshoes "pole" stretching across the top of the crevass. It's footprint is so snowshoe-wide it can withstand tugs, pulls, pulley usage, etc by the person/people in the crevasse. Over the crevasse gap hooks on ropes danglefrom the pole.
At one version the tips of the rescue lines are electrically heated and have big weights on them making it so they get through any loose snow above those to be rescued so they can grab the rescue ropes
Another way to do it, which seems better and is a drone thing I haven't already heard of is a snow digging drone. Flying down the crevass as far as it can go the drone lands on the loose oversnow and starts digging itself down, with the rescue line or perhaps filament attached to it. Drone has sensors like IR and sonar so finding warm people under snow might work out ok even without light.
[8th] I get how the vacuum suctions the people upward, but that only 14.7 lbs/in^2. Freshly noticed... It's the halfbakery!-- beanangel, Jan 04 2021 Approx. 1kg/cm^2, tube is 1m diameter, area is 50 * 50 * 3.14 = 7850 cm^2, theoretical maximum lift at aperture is therefore nearly 8 tons...
Or working another way, to lift 150 kg (human with clothing and equipment) the minimum differential pressure in a1m^2 aperture needs to be only 0.02 atmospheres ...-- 8th of 7, Jan 04 2021 //Retrieving someone from this situation is rarely simple or easy and may significantly imperil the rescuers.//
Not "Someone". This is a foreigner*. There are three options available to the British" a: Not going anywhere near glaciers or other large ice formations thankyou very much.
If you do go walking around on a big sheet of ice full of holes, and then fall down a hole, you've been a bit silly and you should try and redeem yourself in on of the following ways, b: try and die calmly, quietly and quickly so as not to tempt any other fools in e.g. Jeremy Bailey, 1965 <link>. Or, c: take some responsibility and walk you and your broken leg out of the bottom of whatever Andean crevasse you got yourself into, e.g. Joe Simpson, 1985.
Calling in some poor rescue service to get you out of a sticky situation is generally poor form, but at least in the non-deluxe version, you will not repeat the mistake. [+] If it's available as an attachment to Thunderbird 2.
*Someone who isn't British, eg. most of the world, research around the logical paradox posed by some members of the band "Foreigner" is continuing. Current working hypothesis: Some members of the bad "Foreigner" are not, in fact, foreign, but are in fact time wasters.-- bs0u0155, Jan 04 2021 As you have so astutely deduced, the product is intended to exploit the vulnerabilities of the careless, badly-informed, reckless, and chronically dependent. In other words, we anticipate good sales in some areas of North America (though not to Canucks, to whom falling into crevasses and promptly self-rescuing seems to be a routine part of their daily commute to and from primary school).-- 8th of 7, Jan 04 2021 Does the deluxe version come with earplugs and perhaps chewing gum?-- RayfordSteele, Jan 04 2021 random, halfbakery