The body bag of the future
The project started with the idea of designing a portable, cheap fridge. With this in mind we looked for use cases for such a technology. As part of this we interviewed members of the Forensic Services group at the ICRC about how our fridge could be used in the preservation of dead bodies.
During large scale disaster situation identifying people by recognising their face is by far the simplest and most efficient method. However the rate of decomposition in hot and humid climates means there is a very short window of between 24-48hrs for this to be possible.
We realised that building a self-cooling body bag would be ideal but impossible given the price constraints. It would require of the order of 3 kWhrs to cool a whole body from 40C to 2C. In addition only the cheapest available body bags are used in the field. Therefore we started considering alternative methods of slowing decomposition. Potentially useful things are: removal of oxygen, desiccation, reducing bacterial load, ...
There has been no innovation in the field of cheap body bags in the last 20 years. Currently used body bags do nothing to prevent decomposition. In addition they are neither leak nor smell proof. However they are cheap and easy to use.
Among the preservation methods we decided on vacuum packing:
- it is low cost
- demonstrated effectiveness with preservation of food
- easy to implement in the field
An additional benefit to a vacuum proof body bag is its leak and smell tightness.
We researched materials which are rugged enough to withstand handling in the field, cheap, easy to use in manufacturing, while remaining impermeable to air and fluid leaks.
At the same time we started building structural prototypes to learn about what properties are important for handling
