On 9/13/2011 1:00 PM, Robert Green wrote:

So here's the question. Has anyone ever seen or even thought about
designing a home-brewed "safe" stairway? I've been thinking about a
collection of airbags (or one superlarge one) at the bottom of the stairs,
triggered by some sort of detector circuit that could detect a human falling
down the stairs faster than normal walking. You might still get banged up
pretty badly, but the maximum damage, from what little I could find about
the subject, seems to occur when you hit bottom.

It'd be cheaper and easier to outfit the fall-prone person with an
airbag vest, like the ones made for motorcyclists and horseback riders:

http://www.bikebone.com/page/BBSC/CTGY/AT

Basically, it has a built-in airbag with cervical neck support.
There's a lanyard running from the jacket or vest that the rider
attaches to the saddle. A gentle pull won't deploy the airbag, but a
sudden jerk will. When the person is thrown from the saddle, the
airbag deploys and the person skids/tumbles on the bag.

In either scenario, the challenge is figuring out how to trigger the
airbag when needed. Perhaps a built-in accelerometer. They use those
in laptops, to detect sudden motion (suggesting it will fall to the
ground). It tells the computer to temporarily shut down the hard drive
to protect it from the imminent shock.