So, let's say you and your pals are hanging around Germany sometime soon. The beer is flowing, the bratwurst and pretzels are plentiful and the lederhosen is in full bloom — but then the worst happens. Someone has one sausage too many and is in cardiac arrest. With so many people crowding around the casks, there's no way for the paramedics to get here in time.
Then, descending from the heavens, appears a drone. Onboard is a life-saving defibrillator which kickstarts your fallen comrade's heart, averting disaster. Quick as it can, the drone once more takes to the skies, like a miniature, prop-driven Superman.
This is the vision of German nonprofit group Definetz. It is their hope that, someday soon, Germany will be populated by defibrillator drones, or "Defikopters". Each drone will have a radius of six miles and will be capable of reaching an ailing individual anywhere within their range in four and a half minutes. A free smartphone app will be made available to the public so that emergency drone services can be called in at a moment's notice.
This all sounds pretty awesome, but at a cost of $26,000 a pop, Defikopters don't exactly come cheap. There's also the small issue of having individuals trained on defibrillators on hand to use the flown-in devices. We're not saying that life-saving drones which we can hail at a moment's notice aren't awesome, we're just thinking that Germany might first want to consider what it means to put heavy duty medical equipment in the hands of Oktoberfest-goers.
Definetz, via The Verge
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