by Jim Bates

For centuries thought has been given to saving lives of people living or working in human-made structures. Fires can drive desperate people trapped in skyscrapers - or airplanes - to certain death as they escape searing flames. One fire survivor who bailed out of a fiery F6F U.S. Navy fighter plane said, "I would have jumped from that plane even if I didn't have a parachute. You can't imagine such pain! I would not have let myself die that way! "

At an early time in the development of humans the conventional existing and living environment was on the ground - solid earth on which one walked or ran or sat or slept. Then some humans quickly became cave dwellers when they wanted protection from wild, savage animals and belligerent fellow humans.
Then humans learned how to make structures, solid constructions that rose higher and higher above the ground. Communities of multilevel residential dwellings were formed, steadily becoming taller. Merchants' offices were developed and communities became trade centers, towns, and cities. Building heights continued growing.
The renowned, prolific Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) understood the inherent peril of humans rising above the earth's surface. And his thinking process about such "rising" was not limited only to majestic, soaring, bird-like flight.
He also had the notion that some way was needed for a person to safely leave tall buildings in time of emergency. His mind stirred with ideas, looking for an answer to the dilemma facing persons in dire need of some means of escape. However, there was nowhere to go to get background, to learn what others were doing. Rich research resources such as huge libraries and national archives and computer databases that are at hand in the 2Oth century did not exist in da Vinci's time. His solution was to do a lot of thinking.
With building fires claiming lives - some by burning and suffocation, others who jumped rather than face unendurable flames - his constantly churning mind turned to planning some device useful to those trapped at perilous heights in fiery buildings. His 1485 sketchbook showed a not-at-all-outlandish idea:

The great da Vinci's idea apparently never got further. No record has ever been found of such a device actually having been constructed, even in model form of any scale. Beyond the sketch and brief notes, da Vinci's idea remained just that - an idea .
However, through the centuries, as buildings grew taller and as fires sporadically caused people to burn and suffocate to death and to die by leaping from them rather than face the agonies of burning, other thinkers now and then continued to dream up contrivances so people could rescue themselves in that predicament.
There also developed yet another consideration for self-rescue. Skeletal frameworks reached ever higher in the quest for mightier structures; buildings that would serve as "high rise" apartment dwellings in which people could live relatively close to where they worked. Other buildings also quickly proliferated - layer on layer of business offices and commercial centers where firms could be close to one another, could be close to population resources serving as labor pools for their businesses.
Steel skeletons rose higher. Intrepid workers - steeplejacks - clambered up and down and across girders, bolting temporarily here, riveting permanently there, steadily fastening parts together. Sometimes workers fell and most of them died; some from injuries, though perhaps only falling a short distance. Others died instantly on impact, after experiencing the terror of the fall, the terror of knowing what was about to happen. Many of them knew long such moments.

Shortly after the turn of our century, Lee Miller, of Chicago, Illinois, spent a lot of time pondering a notion for "a new and useful Parachute Device, ... " Finally, on December 7, 1911, he filed an application with the U.S. Patent Office in Washington, D.C. His basic premise when he first started doing his thinking was that the "device" would be used by an aviator, but along the way to filing his application he had additional thoughts and on September 10, 1912, the granted patent said:

"The invention relates to aerial life saving devices of the parachute type, and has for its object the provision of a device which can be worn as part of the clothing of aviators operating aeroplanes, balloons, and the like, or those engaged as steeplejacks at lofty elevations, and subject to danger from falling.
A further object of the invention is to provide in connection with the parachute, for the automatic and rapid expansion of the same regardless of the position assumed by the wearer in his fall.
Another object of the invention is the combination, in such a device of a man, of the necessary elements to effect its automatic operation in such a manner as to entail the least burden because of the weight and the least interference with the movements of the person so equipped."

	Patent Images, Lee Miller

Miller, in the specification of "Patent Number 1,037,959, Parachute Device," referred to the canopy as a "parachute body," describing that component of the assembly as:

"the segment of a sphere and has a diameter of about fifteen feet with a depth of three to five feet. The body is provided at the top with an opening of sufficient size to allow a slight escape of air there through to prevent oscillation, and it is also provided with circumferential and radial reinforcing cords.... "

The specification further noted:

"The parachute thus far described is of the usual construction except that it is necessary in order to adapt it for use in this connection to make the same of a special quality of silk, which shall have the least weight consistent with the required strength. I have found it advantageous to use a silk weighing about 2.6 ounces to the square yard and have resistance to rupture of about thirty-two pounds per inch. Material of this sort in a parachute having a diameter of fifteen feet, as stated, weighs about three and one half pounds complete."

Complying with the U.S. Patent Office requirement that an inventor bolster a patent application with one or more claims for the item being submitted for federal approval of singularity, Miller made nine such claims as to why his design was different from any other.
Summarizing the formal wording of the claims, features of his invention included:

• A foldable parachute, with suspension lines and attaching ring.
  
• User's harness attached to suspension lines.
  
• An inflater (air duct with expansible walls and discharging into the folded parachute).
  
• A detachable case for the collapsed inflater.
  
• Rigid and flexible members extending from the harness to support the folded parachute above a user's head.
  
• Pads and yoke.
  
• A hood enveloping a user's head and extending downward over user's shoulders.
  
• Adjustable straps.
  
• Pivotally mounted jointed framework.
  
• Elastic stays.

The inventor paid particular attention to getting the canopy to inflate as quickly as possible. For steeplejacks, Miller reasoned, this was the most important consideration. An "ironworker" would not normally be at a height an aviator would be, a height that would allow greater time for canopy deployment and inflation; but steeplejacks were routinely working at great heights when Miller cogitated about his parachute. He concentrated on "automatic and rapid expansion... regardless of the position assumed by the wearer in his fall." Miller devised an "inflater of flexible material" - a duct with an opening attached to a framework at the back of the hood on a user's head; further devising "membranes" within the duct that separated front and rear channels that each permitted air flow in only one direction. Miller's patent stated:

"It will be observed that upward currents of air will enter the forward channel of the inflater in its lower portion and thence traverse the upper channel of the same, the action of the air thereon tending to press the membrane to the rear and prevent return currents through the rear channel, whereas downward currents of air will enter the upwardly flaring mouth of the rear channel, passing to the single channel of the upper portion and tending to press the membrane forward so as to close the front channel. This provision is intended to meet the conditions present during a fall, directing the relative upward rush of air into and through the inflater whether the wearer falls head first or feet first."

Miller's patent specification was quite complete, including basic packing instructions. And he carefully included reasoning and calculations, the latter with figures showing why he claimed his device was sure and safe:

"... The capacity of the inflater is such that the parachute will be fully extended within the first few yards of descent, so that if the elevation is sufficient to cause material injury, the parachute will expand and break the fall. If the distance is not sufficient to allow the parachute to expand, the arrangement of the same upon the head of the wearer will serve as a cushioning device to prevent injury from contact with the ground or from parts of the machine striking the head of the person.
"It will be understood that if the man when he starts to fall is in full possession of his faculties, he need not wait for the automatic release of the hood but may snatch it off with his hand.
"If, however, he is panic stricken or is affected with mountain sickness causing unconsciousness, the duct will work automatically and with certainty. With the inflater capacity illustrated and found advantageous by test the lateral pressure upon the walls of the inflater caused by the inrushing air currents and acting to release the outer ease rapidly increases with the descent from a pressure of slightly more than a half pound to the square foot at the end of a fall of five feet; three pounds at the end of twenty feet; ten pounds at the end of seventy-five feet, and fourteen pounds at the end of one hundred feet, from which it will be seen that the disengagement of the friction clamps from the ears [located on each side of the hood] and the consequent release of the hood and expansion of the parachute is certain to follow a fall whatever be the initial position of the aviator."

Lee Miller's inclusion, besides aviators, of steeplejacks and others being at great heights, shows that his vision was not limited. However, nothing further has been discovered pertaining to Lee Miller's concept.
Aviation grew enormously in Miller's time and thereafter. The World War and the discovery of air power impelled aviation's growth to gargantuan proportions. While designs of aerial machines, airships, airplanes, aerial vessels, aeroplanes, aircraft, and flying machines proliferated, designs of parachutes, by comparison were usually few and far between. The possibility of falling to earth unprotected against injury and death, seemed to seldom occur to plane designers and many pilots.
However, European military balloon observers in the Great War, once they discovered how vulnerable they were to attacking enemy fighter planes, quickly opted for static line parachutes that let them escape from collapsing envelopes or fiery infernos.

Miller's patent specifications did not mention adaptability of his life-saving device as a means of escaping buildings on fire. But about the same time Miller was completing his planning for an aerial life-saving device, another inventor thousands of miles away in Europe, was immersed in his own thinking. One of that inventor's primary considerations was the rescue of victims in burning structures.

"I. . . have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Parachutes: . . . "

A year and a half later, on December 9, 1913, von Augezd's patent (parachute; #1,081,137), making fourteen claims for uniqueness, was granted by America.
Early in the patent specifications he states:

"My invention relates to parachutes and has for its object a mechanism for efficiently and reliably opening parachutes attached to persons or objects above the ground. As experience shows most of the accidents with parachutes are due to the fact that the parachute does not fully open and therefore cannot carry the full load or is prevented from properly operating by the object itself which it is designed to carry. For avoiding these inconveniences and thereby rendering parachutes perfectly safe in use I provide according to my invention means for shooting the parachute as a whole upward by a driving agent such as an explosive charge or fluid under pressure and for shooting outward its ribs or periphery by driving agents such as an explosive or fluid under pressure before the load to be carried by the parachute becomes operative upon the same. Thus my improved parachute becomes a reliable means for escape by aeronauts, for persons in burning houses and the like."

Herr von Augezd further said:

"The shooting device for the parachute as a whole consists of a tube similar in construction to the barrel of a firearm and is secured to any desired part of the aeroplane, balloon, building, or the like in a vertical or inclined position...."

Patent Drawing, Herr von Augezd

The inventor's specification went into great detail explaining:

"the operation of the device... when used on an aeroplane or a balloon....In case of an emergency the pilot pulls the firing cord. . . fires the explosive charge. .. so that the folded parachute is driven upward. . . takes with it... the device for unfolding the parachute... [other] explosive charges. .. are fired at the moment when the parachute is so far above the aeroplane or balloon that it can unfold freely.... The length of the [suspension] cords carrying the load is so determined that it is only after unfolding the parachute that they are fully stretched so that the load to be carried by the parachute is taken up by the same only after it has been properly unfolded and thus is securely supported by the parachute which then descends slowly together with the load.... "

Inventor von Augezd especially noted:

"The device may also be used as a fire escape in buildings... For this purpose the parachute may be mounted near a window in such manner that it is shot obliquely upward for bringing it out of reach of the flames.... The length of the [suspension] cords has to be determined according to conditions in which the device has to be used. Any construction of parachute may be used."

Ideas for people rescuing themselves continued to be announced by inventors from time to time after Herr von Augezd's U. S .-patented device. But little was, or is yet, done by architects or builders to incorporate some means of emergency egress from towering infernos. Occupants generally are left to find a safe means of interior descent. Such escape action is usually impossible, with power outage eliminating use of elevators, with smoke- and flame-filled corridors and stairwells blocking passage. Or the frightened occupants have to rely on waiting to somehow be rescued by fire departments. However, despite buildings of every type rising to extraordinary heights, rescue vehicles still only have ladders reaching limited elevations.

(The l988 British-American comedy film "A Fish Called Wanda" illustrates a practical nonparachute fire escape device made use of by a three-man gang of robbers escaping from a building rooftop after they have robbed a diamond merchant. The robbed firm is on the top floor of a several-story building and the masked thieves quickly dart to the roof, then, one after the other, enter into the mouth of a vertical tube made of strong, mesh material kept open in a circular shape by a series of hoops spaced along the device's vertical length. The "soft" escape tube's diameter is reduced between the spaced hoops and that constriction is sufficient to prevent a body from hurtling through the tube at dangerous speed, but not so narrow as to prevent passage. The device worked just fine for the fleeing bandits, each needing only several seconds to move from rooftop to the pavement below, but then no flames were engulfing the device.)
Helicopters have been useful in plucking helpless victims from rooftops, but not every building-on-fire occupant has always been successful in reaching the haven of the building's roof. And it usually requires much precious time to get properly equipped rescue helicopters to a high-rise disaster.