City Room's Jennifer 8. Lee filed a report from the TED Conference about the Rescue Reel. It's a $2,000 device where "people strap themselves into the harness, lock the reel to a stationary point like a door frame and gently propel themselves backward down the outside of a building," and investor Dr. Kevin R. Stone was inspired by the wrenching footage of people jumping from the burning World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He told her, "I was appalled that those people can’t get out. My immediate thought was, ‘I can reel in a 400-pound fish. Why can’t I reel out a 400-pound person?’"
Stone, who commissioned an engineering firm to design a harness (he's invested $1 million so far), described the device in Newsweek last year:
It is less than 20 pounds (for the 100-story model), fits in a filing cabinet, and is ready to use in three steps: fasten the clip to a secure object, slip on the harness, and slide out a window. The 1,000-foot cord is equipped with an automatic braking system, so if you can make it out the window, you descend at no quicker than about two seconds per story (which means it would have taken about four minutes to flee the upper floors of the Twin Towers).
The ropes are made out of Kevlar and will apparently available in 30-, 60- and 100-story lengths, though customized lengths could eventually be ordered. The user's weight can be from 3 pounds to 400 pounds. The harness also received a Popular Science Invention Award in 2009.
