Wed, Oct 31, 2001 page24

• Living room protection from bio-terrorism

  LIFE CELL Whether you want the US$4,500 economy size or the US$57,000 military model, those desperate for safety may now buy the perfect item in time for Christmas

  • NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
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  The economy may be tanking, but for Walton McCarthy business couldn't be better.

  Earlier this month, McCarthy received a patent for his "life cell," an air-purifying apparatus and communications system that he contends could transform an ordinary living room into safe, self-sufficient oasis in the midst of a bioterrorist attack.

  McCarthy said his company, Radius Engineering, located near Concord, New Hampshire, was two months behind in production on the life cells, which go for US$4,500, and six months behind on its underground shelters, which sell for US$16,000 to nearly US$60,000.

  

  Walter McCarthy stands next to one of his underground shelters, for which he has a six-month backlog. They sell for US$16,000 to US$60,000.

  PHOTO: NY TIMES

  "We've got double shifts working six days a weeks," said McCarthy, noting that Radius is planning to expand production twelvefold in the coming year.

  The life cell device, which is 1.21m in diameter, is basically a battery-powered filtering system that draws in air through a hose from the outside, purifies it, and then pumps it into a room that has been sealed off from the rest of the house -- and the world. The device is equipped with CB radio and scanner, a 12-volt lamp, and a "chemical agent detector kit," designed to help the citizen under siege determine exactly which toxic agent has been unleashed. (Add-on options include a chemical toilet and water supplies.)

  "The life cell goes right in the living room -- it replaces your coffee table," McCarthy said. Although a buyer may opt to leave it in the basement while awaiting Armageddon -- it can assembled in 30 minutes -- the 226.7kg battery system might be hard to lug upstairs in a hurry.

  Child of the `50s

  McCarthy, who is 49 and old enough to remember the "duck and cover" drills that ostensibly prepared school children for a nuclear attack during the Cold War, said he did not recall having been preoccupied with the thought of nuclear war while growing up. And his family did not have a backyard bomb shelter.

  But since his graduation from Montana State University in 1974, he has become an authority on underground shelters. He is the author of two books, The Nuclear Shelterist and Principles of Protection: The US Handbook of NBC Weapon Fundamentals and Shelter Engineering Standards.

  McCarthy received US patent 6,296,693 for his life cell. But he was selling underground disaster shelters long before it occurred to him to turn a living room into a chemically and biologically secure fortress. The standard Radius underground shelter, has a fiberglass, egg-shaped shell. Meant to accommodate six people, it comes with a toilet, a shower, food storage, an air filtration system, and three weeks' worth of battery power.

  "That's our Ford Escort model," McCarthy said. The most expensive version listed on Radius' Web site (www.radius-defense.com) is a military model, which costs US$57,000. It provides life support for up to two years, is designed to avoid detection by radar or thermal or magnetic sensors, and is meant to withstand "gunfire and hand grenades."

  McCarthy said some potential customers expected the shelter to be like a posh condominium. But the top-of-the-line model is only as big as a single-car garage. "People come into this wondering where the color TV set is," he said, sighing.

  Who are the typical buyers? Rather than the stereotypical "militia-type people, shoot 'em types of guys," McCarthy said, his customers are more likely to be safety-conscious people -- like mothers who buy organic produce and make their kids wear bike helmets. "We sell it to the type of people who wear seatbelts and don't smoke," he said.

  But in 1996, however, according to a document from the Department of Commerce, the United States revoked McCarthy's export privileges for 10 years for "willfully, knowingly, and unlawfully dealing and attempting to deal in property intended for exportation to Iraq, specifically an underground shelter known as an 'S30 Remote Tactical Base."'

  McCarthy said that he never actually shipped any shelters to Iraq but that doing so would present no moral quandary for him. "I think of it as a humanitarian product," he said. "Do children in Iraq deserve to be protected? It's the same thing if someone from the Ku Klux Klan or some supremacist group calls me, as long as they are going to use it lawfully. I despise all of the hate groups, but I can't play God. I can't say they don't deserve to live."

  Personal safety seems a preoccupation of many inventors. Dozens of patents have been issued recently for inventions offering protection against more conventional threats.

  A shoe heel for personal items

  Dorene Jean Munoz, of Racine, Wisconsin, received a patent for "footwear having concealed storage cavity for personal items." It is essentially a shoe with a hollow heel that screws into the sole. "I thought of the idea when I went to a formal because it was difficult to dance with a purse swinging around," said Munoz, who said she did not want to leave her purse at a table for fear it might be stolen.

  The heel can hold keys, lipstick, money and medications. Munoz hopes to license her patent, 6,289,612.

  Joe Thornblad, of Saint Peter, Minnesota, has patented a wristwatch that serves as a smoke detector and a kidnapper alarm. The smoke detector sets off an alarm inside the watch; to activate the kidnapper alarm, a child would push a button that silently alerts the police of his location. Thornblad has not yet built a prototype, but said he hoped to license patent 6,285,289.
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