System for assisting the rescue of vulnerable persons

摘要

A system is provided for assisting the rescue of vulnerable persons, such as young children, the elderly, and the disabled, from buildings, particularly by a fire rescue crew. Conventionally, a fire rescue crew, upon entering a burning building 1, will search rooms 1A to 1H in a strictly specified order to ensure that every room is searched. This procedure however does not ensure that top priority is given to rooms that are likely to contain vulnerable persons. This problem is addressed by the disclosed system which utilises a visual signalling unit 5 mounted on or adjacent the door of a room 1F identified as containing a vulnerable person and visible to rescuers in the access area A. The signalling unit 5 comprises a microphone (6,fig.2); means (7-11,fig.2) for processing an output of the microphone to identify a sound emanated from a smoke alarm; and means (12,12A,fig.2) for generating, in response to such detection, a visual signal, visible to rescuers in the access area A. Activation of the visual signal may be delayed by a predetermined period to allow for longer observation of a sound potentially emitted from a smoke alarm in order to avoid false activations, and to account for the response time of the fire rescue crew.