Automated Pool System Saves Swimmer

An anonymous reader writes "An automated swimmer tracking system installed in a pool in Wales has saved a young girl who just collapsed and sank to the bottom, by paging lifeguards when it could not detect her moving." This is the first time a UK swimmer has been saved by the £65,000 Poseidon system since it was installed in March of 2003.

Comments

Mastercard

[LittleGuernica]

Mastercard will love this one. Poseidon: 65k. Saving a young life: priceless. For everything else...you get the drill

Poseidon Vista

[LittleGuernica]

In late 2006 they will Install Poseidon Vista, which makes the entire pool searchable, have an "aqua" interface and tranparant water. A new filtersing system is also planned, called PoseidonFS, but will probably come with service pack 1.

Re:Poseidon Vista

[WillAffleckUW]

In late 2006 they will Install Poseidon Vista, which makes the entire pool searchable, have an "aqua" interface and tranparant water. A new filtersing system is also planned, called PoseidonFS, but will probably come with service pack 1.

It will also have tabbed swimming, allowing multiple swimmers to use one pool lane at the same time, at different depths, and will come complete with extra features like clogged filters.

I wonder why it decided to save her

[kyle90]

After all, she only had an 11% chance of survival, but Will Smith had a 40% chance.

Re: £65,000?

[Homology]

Worth every cent.

Erh, I guess that should be pennies :-)

Good God!

[Black Parrot]

> by paging lifeguards when it could not detect her moving.

Let's hope they never deploy this where I work!

Re:KISS

[pclminion]

That's a FANTASTIC idea (no sarcasm), and if I believed in patents I would urge you to patent it ;-)

In other news...

[mriya3]

"An automated swimmer tracking system installed in a pool in Wales allowed lifeguards to ban a man that was urinating in the pool"

Re:Wales Needs Vowels

[oberondarksoul]

Just a hint: might want to check your facts. We use miles in the UK... :P

Billiards

[NitsujTPU]

RTFA, the British don't call it pool, they call it Billiards!

Re:One step further

[sanosuke76]

Simple solution: start a rumor that womens' swimsuits frequently fall off on-camera. Problem solved, plenty of volunteers to watch the monitors tirelessly!

Re:One step further

[Skye16]

Considering what a bastard I was (am), I would have consistently gotten the watch wet just to irritate my parents who made me wear the stupid thing. I'm relatively sure that, barring any other source of water, I would have pissed on it (but only because I'm the sort of person who will piss on their arm just to not have to do something ELSE they wouldn't want to do).

As an offtopic aside - I spent a lot of time grounded as a child. : )

Re:Excellent.

[typical]

But ... "It then compares images to a database of thousands of examples of swimmers in trouble. " ... seems like an inefficient and error prone way to solve this problem.

Ah hah! Your database doesn't have a single image of an octopus attacking a motorcycle rider after he accidentally drove his motorcycle into a pool, *does* it!