Excerpts from king5.com:
Keeping bedroom doors closed in your home when you go to sleep is critical in keeping your family safe. We used to have about 17 minutes to get out of our homes if a fire broke out. Because of open floor plans and more synthetics in our furniture, the window for escape is now down to just three minutes.
Joel Sellinger, an Everett (WA) fireman, sees it all the time. Twin 3-year-old girls survived an apartment fire earlier this year because their bedroom door was closed. He was on the scene and took photos of the damage. One picture clearly shows the scorched, blackened outside of their bedroom door. The inside portion looks almost untouched.
He has been unable to convince his young daughter to keep her door closed at night. So, he came up with something called Lifedoor. He worked with the Northwest Innovation Research Center to make it a reality. When a smoke alarm starts going off, Lifedoor hears that sound and triggers a device mounted to the bedroom door. The door closes automatically, a light is activated, and an alert is sent to your phone.
Sellinger’s invention is expected to cost less than $100 and be on the market in February. He says it’s already helping his family sleep better at night.
