BROOK PARK, Ohio -- Brook Park may buy safety gadgets invented by Walton Hills' mayor: USB flash drives for residents' refrigerators.
Each drive would contain encrypted information about the family, such as photo IDs, medical histories, prescriptions, emergency contacts, even funeral instructions. Parademics would plug the drive into their laptop and decode it.
Walton Hills safety workers recently loaded and distributed about 100 drives for free to volunteering residents in their village, and a company formed by Mayor Kevin Hurst has sold 500 drives to neighboring Oakwood. The price is $28 apiece for up to 1,000 drives or $24 for 1,000 to 3,000 drives.
A representative of Hurst's company, HK64, demonstrated the devices to Brook Park City Council. Councilman-at-Large Anthony D'Amico hopes the city could prepare the drives and give them out for free to volunteering senior citizens at first and maybe to younger volunteers later on.
D'Amico says the drive would give accurate information that no one at home might be calm enough or knowledgeable enough to explain. "Now we'll have all the information without asking anybody, which takes away from the response time."
Hurst calls his invention R.E.S.C.U.E USB--24/7. The acronym stands for Residents Exchange information concerning Safety that can be Communicated by Uniting all safety departments in the time of an Emergency.
Hurst, a 33-year tool-and-die-maker, designed a drive with four gigabytes of memoryCH and a holder that grips the fridge. He says he's spaced the magnets far enough from the drive not to interfere with its information.
Naturally, the drive looks like a paramedic van.
Why not just put all the information on a town's computers from the start? Hurst and D'Amico say such a method would be too easy to hack and might violate medical confidentiality laws. Instead, residents bring information to their safety departments, which transcribe it in the drives.
D'Amico hopes to introduce a bill in late April or early May to buy 2,000 drives plus a related computer and camera. He estimates the cost at about $60,000. The money is not in the recently passed general budget, but he expects to be able to adjust for it.
Hurst says he hopes to turn his new business into a nonprofit. "This is not profit-making for me," he says. "I'm more trying to do a service."
The handy Hurst has also designed the village's veterans memorial and made flag brackets to be used this summer to decorate local bridges.