High-tech help is on the way for rescuers

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

BY WAYNE WOOLLEY
Star-Ledger Staff

It was March 4. An explosion had just leveled the warehouse-size Petco in Eatontown. Water was flooding the basement. Pressurized natural gas was whistling through the wreckage. And a firefighter from nearby Fort Monmouth, who had been sent into the debris, was missing.

For five frantic minutes, Fort Monmouth Fire Chief John C. Erichsen tried to ensure the safety of his man, Paul Wind, badge number 127.

"Has anyone established communications with one-two-seven?" Erichsen asked over the radio at one point, irritation growing in his voice. "I want an ASAP answer on that -- I want to find the location of one-two-seven."

In the end, Wind, uninjured, reported to his chief after helping free one of the explosion's five survivors. And now both men -- Department of Defense civilians -- are helping test a technology that Fort Monmouth researchers believe will someday end emergency-services communication breakdowns that have impeded countless rescue operations, from the Twin Towers to the Petco store.

Among other innovations, the developing technology will give firefighters, police officers and emergency officials an electronic vest and eyepieces that will provide their commanders with their location and their vital signs, as well as real-time video of their surroundings.

Fort Monmouth, the Army communications research and development center chosen by the Pentagon for closure, has begun work on creating what it calls a "First Responder Response Operations Center," using a $5 million homeland security budget appropriation from Congress. Working with a private firm, Rex Systems of Wisconsin, Fort Monmouth officials envision making the technology available to emergency workers across the country within five years.

"This is what we needed in the field yesterday. This is going to save lives," Erichsen said yesterday during a demonstration of the system. "This is military technology adapted for civilian use."

Other devices under development as part of the First Responder system are a robot that can analyze suspected chemical, nuclear or biological material, and a mobile communications device that enables officials from various agencies to use their own radios, which otherwise would use different frequencies, to communicate with each other.

Advocates for Fort Monmouth say the Defense Department overlooked its contributions to homeland security when it decided to close the 80-year-old installation and move its more than 5,000 civilian jobs to Maryland.

Equipment developed by Fort Monmouth tracked cell phone signals to help rescuers find dozens of bodies buried by the collapse of the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, and its researchers have developed some of the Army's most sophisticated electronic eavesdropping devices.

Rep. Rush Holt (D-12th Dist.), who shares representation of Fort Monmouth with Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th Dist.) said yesterday the innovations such as the First Responder should be considered by the oversight panel weighing the Pentagon's closure recommendations.

"This is a perfect example of how vital Fort Monmouth is to our nation's homeland defense efforts," Holt said.

The federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission is to decide by Sept. 8 whether Fort Monmouth and 32 other major defense installations should close as part of a Pentagon consolidation.

Work on the First Responder system would continue at other locations if the Pentagon decision to close Fort Monmouth were upheld.

Fort Monmouth officials say the need for the First Responder system was highlighted by the communications breakdowns at the Twin Towers on 9/11.

"Fire and police departments didn't know where their people were. The commanders didn't have the information they needed," said Sharon Mackey, chief of the network operations branch at Fort Monmouth.

The vest and eyepiece are designed to eliminate that problem.

The vest is fitted with a global-positioning device that can transmit to a computer monitor inside a command center the location of a police officer or firefighter to within a few feet. A camera mounted within the vest will transmit the landscape to the command center as it is seen by the wearer. The accompanying eyepiece will allow the wearer to do everything from monitoring his or her heart rate to viewing video images of what other members of the rescue team are seeing.

Fort Monmouth's engineers say they want to cut the weight of the equipment from its current 12 pounds to about eight pounds as they continue development.

Gary Blohm, a civilian science and technology director at Fort Monmouth, said the concept behind First Responder is similar to recently developed military technology that gives commanders an electronic picture of the battlefield, with the locations of all the friendly and enemy units.

"We call it 'situational awareness,' and it has applications that can be used by the civilian first responder as well as the war fighter," Blohm said.

Wayne Woolley covers the military. He may be reached at wwoolley@starledger.com or (973) 392-1559.