carrying injured people to safety

Fleetseat has launched and is open for business. outerspace is proud to be part of the Fleetseat journey. Working with Meditech4Sports founder, Luke Versace and the M4S team over two years, our designers and engineers have enjoyed the challenge to help make Fleetseat happen.

Fleetseat is a new, faster and safer way to carry injured people to receive first aid. The design of the soft and strong carry system, makes it significantly easier for two people to lift and carry an injured person without injuring themselves. It enhances patient safety by minimising or removing the potential for invasive, often unwanted physical contact, that occurs with a two-person carry. The Fleetseat kit is designed to be compact, and quick to deploy in an emergency.

We took Fleetseat’s early concept and helped build and develop the product specification. Using aspects of textile, fashion and product design to create a strong and compact safety system, our team tested and prototyped materials and designs. Our designers and engineers developed specialised formats and styles, using engineering construction methods for soft goods.

Every stitch, seam and material layer had to work in sync to achieve the strength and reliability required for Fleetseat. Through multiple iterations of prototypes and load testing, we refined the design for optimisation of usability, aesthetics and robustness, to ensure Fleetseat is strong and safe to use.

Specific attention to ergonomic design and an understanding of the complex biomechanics required was a priority. The ergonomic challenge was to design a safety product that was safe for the two people using Fleetseat, and safe for the injured person being carried in it.

The ergonomic design direction was informed by the best biomechanical method. This was to place the load of the injured person being carried through the opposite shoulder of each person carrying them.

“We designed and engineered the adjustability of the product, making sure it could be rapidly set up. All of the touchpoints are designed to be comfortable and to distribute the load, for short and long term comfort. This includes large padded shoulder straps and padded grab handles,” explains Mike Denham, Design Manager, outerspace.

Fleetseat is designed to be intuitive so people always use it correctly, and avoid injuring themselves and others. We built multiple prototypes to live-test and detail the design of the handles, straps and graphics to make sure the product was easy to use, understand and set up.

Designed to be fast to deploy, Fleetseat is worn like a satchel and is rapidly deployed so another carrier can quickly and intuitively put the other side on and be ready to carry an injured person to a safe place to receive medical attention or first aid.

see the case study

 

authors

Belinda Stening Design Strategist and Industrial Designer
Design Strategy and Marketing

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