Karnataka teen’s stretcher with shock absorbers selected second-best among 3.92 lakh innovation entries

According to Ahmed, the idea of developing a stretcher embedded with shock absorbers came to him after losing his grandmother last year. She died due to a downward shift of blood flow while she was taken on a stretcher up a ramp in a hospital.

A project by a class 10 boy from Karnataka’s Bidar district was adjudged second best from among 3.92 lakh ideas and innovations sent from across the country for the eighth edition of the National Level Exhibition and Project Competition (NLEPC).

Owais Ahmed, a student of Govt High School in Bhatambra, developed a ‘safety horizontal stretcher’.

According to Ahmed, the idea of developing a stretcher embedded with shock absorbers came to him after losing his grandmother last year. She died due to a downward shift of blood flow while she was taken on a stretcher up a ramp in a hospital.

“While carrying the patient on the mountain slopes or on the ramps in the hospitals, the downward shift of blood is likely to aggravate the patient’s condition,” he noted.

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Explaining how his innovation works, the teenager said, “This stretcher, unlike its conventional counterparts, is built in such a way that the gravity point of the patient is managed using the patient’s weight itself. This gets balanced on the central wheels during the movement on ramps, slopes or uneven surfaces.”

While the front set of wheels on the stretcher can rotate 90-degrees on their axles, Ahmed said, the spring inside each axle would act as shock absorbers. “In the case of climbing stairs, the pull-up brake will ensure support. Further, the hand-lift stretcher can be easily separated and can be used to carry the patient at the ground level. The patient can be loaded easily on the pulling/pushing wheeled stretcher as well,” he added.

Developed under the guidance of his teacher Khaleel Ahmed Kagazi, Ahmed said that the cost to make each unit of the ‘safety horizontal stretcher’ would be around Rs 3,000 and that with further research, the same can be used in hospitals, battlefields, malls, rescue operations, and other terrains as well.

Including Ahmed, a total of 60 innovations from among students of grades 6 to 10 were conferred with the INSPIRE Awards – MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspiration and Knowledge), constituted by the Central Department of Science and Technology (DST). As many as four others from Karnataka also featured in the list of 60 awardees. While Kshowradha Samartha, a Class 6 student from GMHP School, Halubagalu, was selected for developing a brick-lifting tool using scrap iron, Devegowda, a Class 10 student at GH School, Kallanakuppe, made an advanced cattle shed.

At the same time, a crop cutter developed by Devindra B Biradar (GHSKD School, Vijayapura) and Road Gullies, a system that alerts people of any open manhole on public roads, was made by Ayush KV Jalahalli, Bengaluru) made up the others picked from the state.

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Meanwhile, Navshri Thakur, a class 8 student from GMS Dokri Kheda, Hoshangabad, Madhya Pradesh was picked as the winner of NLEPC for developing a multi-utility kitchen machine used to prepare items using dough, cut fruits, vegetables, and crush ginger and garlic among nearly 20 other activities.

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