Building a better spine board

By Barbara Brown
Fantastic dreams can become big reality if you work hard enough on them.
Just as John Spanton and his friends, who have joined forces to market the motorized spine board he designed to the National Football League and the National Athletic Training Association and emergency medical personnel, among others.
Spanton, 59, of Centuria, Wisc., retired 15 years ago from the federal intelligence field.
Since then, he has spent time designing new contraptions that make life easier.
Designing and tinkering with mechanical and electronic devices has been a passion for Spanton since childhood.
The St. Paul-born man recalls putting together tiny components to make miniature radios in the 1950s.
He also designed the TENS unit which uses electrical signals to block chronic pain.
That invention made $68 million for Todd Medical, the company that bought the patent.
Spanton also is credited with designing the standard electric time processor that was first integrated into the digital screens for microwave ovens, which Texas Instruments eventually came to own.
Now, Spantonís latest design is expected to take lifting and transporting people who have severe injuries or potential back, spine, neck and skull injuries much easier.
Spanton said the last development in picking up another human was during World War I when soldiers used canvas and two long sticks to create a stretcher.
Now, loading even a person who weighs 400 pounds on to a gurney can be as effortless as someone who may weigh 100 pounds.
With the development of the motorized spine board, health care workers will be able to save time and energy transporting people with potential spinal injuries.
Spantonís son has played football since he was small and now he plays semi-professional football for the Tokyo Indians. Next season he is expected to start for the Hawaii Islanders in arena league play.
Spending years on the sidelines of football games has given Spanton the opportunity to be a first-hand witness to injuries that can occur on the field.
He said, however, that just a few months ago when he was watching a professional football game, he saw athletic trainers take nearly 10 minutes to remove an injured player from the field.
Spanton said the motorized board can load a 400 pound man in about 45 seconds, thereby preventing delays of games.
Not only could the board be used in football stadiums, Spanton said, but it can be fitted with spikes that would grip the ice on a hockey rink.
He also said the machine has practical purposes when it comes to vehicle and fire accident victims.
ìMost anybody on the street knows that the first thing you do if you have someone with a possible neck injury is move them as little as possible,î Spanton said. ìThe spine board helps us do that.î
Spanton and his partners, Ron Guolette and LeRoy and Cecilia Shinler, meet regularly now to work on the protype and demonstrate its power to others.
Spanton began drawing out the sketches for the design in October 1998.
He met up with Goulette and the Houles earlier this year after an inventors club meeting.
The group already has made contact with the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings, they said.
They expect to meet with the Vikings in late January after the football season closes and the trainers and administration would be available for a demonstration, Goulette said.
He added that the Green Bay Packers have expressed interest in meeting with the group as well.
Goulette also made contact with the president of the National Athletic Training Association and the group will make a presentation at the associationís annual meeting in Indiana in February.
The lightweight robotic spine board moves along the ground, slowly inching its way under an injured person, with the help of two sets of tracks that move clockwise and counter-clockwise to create a crawling action.
The board is placed at the head of the injured person and the battery-powered machine is turned on by an athletic trainer or EMT.
While the board slowly wedges its way under the person, sliding them gently up the inclined board, medical personnel can attend to prepping the patient for transportation to a hospital or just the locker room.
The board weighs only about 40 pounds total and is about three inches tall at its peak. It can be mounted on top of a regular gurney and strapped down for transportation. At the hospital, the machine can be put in reverse to unload the patient just as smoothly and quickly.
Spanton said the machine could cost about $7,000 retail, but that after the business gets in gear, the group would be willing to work with colleges and high schools to get the board on their fields as well.

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