Incredible Inventions That Can Save Your Life

Be prepared to survive the worst with these incredible life saving inventions!

October 13, 2023・

19 min read

From refrigerators to radios, and cars to coffee machines, the human race has come up with some pretty ingenious everyday inventions. But, as impressive as those are, they’re not exactly lifesavers (well, apart from the coffee machine).

However, there are some gadgets that could come in handy if you find yourself in an unexpected life or death situation. From earthquake-proof beds to shark-repelling bracelets, and even slime robots, here are some incredible inventions that could save your life.

Earthquake Safety Bed

Imagine this: you’re all snuggled up, cozy and warm in bed, gently drifting off to sleep, when all of a sudden, the walls are shaking, the windows shatter, and the ceiling above you cracks and gives way; it’s an earthquake!

Between 1998 and 2017, earthquakes took the lives of more than 750,000 people around the world, the majority of which perished due to falling debris. So, they’re a very real, and very nasty threat, particularly at night! Being asleep in bed isn’t the position you wanna be in while your house collapses on top of you. After all, your pillows aren’t gonna do much to save you from being crushed by a falling ceiling!

But strange as it sounds, Chinese inventor Wang Wenxi, created a concept that makes your bed the safest place to be during an earthquake. At first glance, it looks like any old bed. Yet, the sleeping station is built with tremor sensors, which, when triggered, cause the bed’s base to open up, swallowing the sleeper up and cocooning them inside a rigid metal frame!

A protective slated lid then rolls over the frame, turning what was a bed into an earthquake-resistant box. While it may look suspiciously like getting locked in your own private coffin, the bed’s chamber contains flashlights, medical kits, loud whistles, and supplies of water & food that can last up to 20 days. That seems kind of excessive, why so much?

Well, rubble is not an easy thing to clear. Depending on where you are in the world, it can take weeks to get to people buried under an entire building’s worth of heavy rubble. Wang’s patent also suggested multiple ways it could work, including a version for a wider double bed, involving the mattress folding in on the sleepers before a metal top slides over them.

It was that design that moved to the prototype phase back in 2012, showcasing how it could quickly and easily protect a sleeping couple. Instead of the flat roof shown in the concept, the triangular roof is angled to prevent debris from gathering on top of the box, while still allowing holes for airflow!

While those beds aren’t currently available to buy, just knowing they exist means I’m going to sleep soundly tonight!

Tsunami Survival Capsule

Between 1998 and 2017, tsunamis caused over 250,000 fatalities around the world. While statistically, they’re not as deadly as earthquakes, those walls of water are capable of traveling at jet plane speeds of 500 mph, flooding up to 10 miles inland, with enough power to tear through anything in their path once they hit the shore well, almost anything.

Engineers Julian Sharpe and Scott Hill came up with the Tsunami Survival Capsule; a spherical, watertight, buoyant ball made from aircraft-grade aluminum, designed to withstand sharp object penetration and heat exposure, providing protection for up to 10 people! If disaster strikes, all you have to do is get in, strap in, sit back, relax, and wait for the tsunami to pass.

Similar versions, such as the RescuePod, have been tested thoroughly and I mean thoroughly. Like, putting someone in one and throwing them over a cliff kind of thoroughly! Those pods are installed on rooftops of at-risk areas, so if the building collapses, they won’t be trapped under it and can float to safety.

The interior of the capsule is fitted with seats and storage for five days’ worth of supplies per person. Anyone feeling adventurous can even purchase bonus features like dry powder toilet facilities, internal lighting, and even a surround-sound music system!

Unsurprisingly, those crazy capsules don’t come cheap: a 2 person Tsunami Survival Capsule starts at $13,500. While that sounds pricey, that’s nothing compared to the 4-person capsule, which will set you back an eye-watering $17,500! If you can afford it, it sounds like a great place to be while all hell breaks loose around you!

The SkySaver Kit

A lot of us use backpacks every day, and they’re all the same really. But there is a backpack that can save your life. The SkySaver may look like any other backpack, but inside the zips is a Controlled Descent Device; a portable emergency evacuation kit used for scaling down high-rise buildings during emergencies, like fires or earthquakes.

Usually, if you were trapped in such terrifying circumstances, you’d have to choose between jumping out a window and somehow landing more than 100 ft without becoming a human pancake, or staying put and praying that the fire dies out before the flames engulf you. Honestly, I’m not a fan of either of those options!

And that’s where the SkySaver saves the day. All you need to do is attach its fire-resistant cable to a secure anchor point, buckle up the harness, and exit via the nearest window to safely descend. The Controlled Descent Device takes it from there, automatically lowering you down at around 6.5 feet per second.

With a maximum carry weight of 300 lbs, they’re strong enough to support an average adult and young child down in one trip or, if you don’t have kids.

Obviously though, turning into Spiderman doesn’t come at a cut price. At their lowest price point, the single self-rescue kit, complete with an 80-foot-long cable, costs $1,485. But anyone looking to really splash the cash can buy the $2,370 family kit, which comes with a baby harness and a 260-foot-long cable.

GTFO Wrist Strap

Fortunately, not all life-saving gizmos are priced as painfully as the SkySaver. Take the GTFO wrist strap as an example, which comes in at just $7. The cheap bracelet may look like a questionable teenage fashion choice, but there’s much more to that thing than meets the eye.

The strap is made of an elastic material, but its bead is made of tungsten carbide, a dense compound so strong that it’s used in armor-piercing ammunition. You may be wondering what the point of those wacky wrist straps is. Well, that bullish bracelet comes in handy if ever you’re stuck in a car.

Whether the vehicle’s crashed, filling with water, or even if you’re being kidnapped, the GTFO can help you escape. All the user has to do is remove the wrist strap, before aiming for the window, and firing the bead from their thumb and forefinger, like a slingshot!

The tungsten carbide bead has the capacity to smash tempered car glass, shattering it and allowing the trapped occupant to escape the vehicle. Looks a whole lot cooler than just a teeny bracelet now, doesn’t it?

Sawyer Extractor Pump

Around 1 in 3 of us has an intense fear of snakes and it’s not hard to see why! Every year around 2.7 million people are bitten by venomous vipers, with about 100,000 of those victims not making it through the ordeal. Even in less severe cases, snake envenomation can lead to bruising around the bite, excessive salivation, and a rapid heart rate!

But imagine you were bitten while walking in the wilderness, miles away from any help. Safe to say, your odds of survival aren’t looking great. And that’s where the Sawyer Extractor supposedly comes in! By placing the suction device over the bite, and pushing the pump down, it creates a vacuum chamber, sucking any recently injected venom out. And it’s just $15!

That sounds too good to be true because it is. Scientific studies have shown that those devices are incapable of removing enough venom to prevent the majority of it from pumping around the bloodstream.

You may have seen in movies or TV shows that people suck at a wound to draw the venom out, but injected venom spreads through the victim’s system so quickly that there’s no hope of sucking out a sufficient amount to make any difference.

Using a tourniquet to try and cut off circulation also isn’t a great move, because venom that stays concentrated in any part of the body will rapidly destroy the cells there! Allowing the toxin to spread and dilute actually reduces tissue damage.

However, the only effective treatment is a dose of antivenom, so getting to the nearest medical facility is a must! And don’t fall for anyone trying to tell you otherwise, they’re probably just trying to sell you snake oil!

Life Drone

Picture this: You’re at the beach, enjoying a nice relaxing stroll, when all of a sudden, the water swells up, and drags you out into the open ocean. You try to swim back to land, but a rip current pulls you further and further out to sea. You can see people on the beach calling for help, but there are no lifeguards. You’re exhausted. You’re cold. You don’t know how much longer you can keep your head above the waves.

Sadly, thousands of people find themselves in such a situation every year, with over 100 in the US alone not making it out alive. But just as you’re about to give up hope, something suddenly flies up above you. Is it a bird? A plane? Nope, it’s a Life Drone.

Designed by Hyunjun Choi, the conceptual lifesaving device relies on 2 connected boards containing 4 propellors to fly over the waves toward the location of the person in danger. A flotation device attached to its base then inflates, before its propellors fold up and it drops down into the water, transforming into a life raft!

Once the person has clambered onto the raft, the drone’s propellors turn the raft into a motorboat, transporting the individual to the shore. It’s an incredible concept that would prevent lifeguards or anyone else from risking their own lives to rescue those stuck in such dangerous positions.

However, it’s unclear exactly how the drone would locate the individual at sea, or if it’d be autonomous. Even so, it will hopefully become more than just a concept in the near future.

Sharkbanz

Back in 2014, Nathan Garrison created something to deal with one very particular ocean threat, sharks! In all, there were around 2,900 shark attacks between 1958 and 2023, with over 20% being fatal. He simply came up with a $110 bracelet. While the rubber strap on the bracelet looks like an expensive fad, those bands hold a surprising secret.

Sharkbanz utilizes powerful magnets to create an effective magnetic field around the bracelet. It may not seem like much of a deterrent, but sharks have an electroreception sensory system in their snouts and jaws which they use to navigate the waters.

So, when they approach the Sharkbanz magnetic field, their electroreception can become overstimulated, inhibiting their ability to hunt and navigate.

Marine biologists have compared the sensation to when our eyes are exposed to a bright light in a dark room, and we all know how uncomfortable that is! To prove how effective it is, Sharkbanz’s creators lined a mannequin’s sock with bait, along with a single Sharkbanz, and then floated it out into shark-infested waters.

While those sharks were hungry, for over 30 minutes, none of them dared take a bite at the foot or even took bait near the foot! They then tested the foot again, that time without the Sharkbanz, and in less than 2 minutes, those sharks were happy to chow down on the mannequin’s ankle!

But as ingenious as they seem, Sharkbanz hasn’t always put off those ocean critters. Back in 2016, a 14-year-old surfer was bitten on the arm by a shark, despite wearing a Sharkbanz bracelet.

It didn’t help that the kid effectively jumped off his surfboard and onto a shark he hadn’t spotted beneath him still. Those devices are precautionary measures, and while they’re not guaranteed to stop every shark attack, not jumping on a shark is also a great way to prevent becoming lunch!

Aircraft With A Detachable Cabin

Many are afraid of flying and it’s a totally rational fear to have considering over 80,000 people have passed away in aviation accidents since 1970! Fortunately, though, Ukrainian engineer Vladimir Tatarenko has come up with something that could ensure that number doesn’t climb any higher.

During flight, the plane in the footage below looks like any old aircraft. However, in emergency situations, the plane’s cabin can fully detach! It may look like it’s destined for a crash landing, but Tatarenko’s cabin would be fitted with industrial-sized parachutes on its roof, which instantly release as soon as it detaches.

It’s not explicitly stated what the parachute strings are made out of, but considering the fuselage of a standard passenger plane weighs in around 350,000 lbs and that’s when it’s not full of passengers, they’d need to be comprised of an ultra-resistant carbon nanofiber, or superstrength Kevlar.

And, for that extra bit of safety, the base of the cabin would be fitted with long rubber tubes that inflate, cushioning the impact on land, or keeping the cabin afloat on water. Although it may seem like a faultless plan, Tatarenko’s airplane system hasn’t had the go-ahead yet.

The design would reduce a plane’s seating capacity and increase fuel usage, leading to plane prices rising. On top of that, the odds of being in an aircraft disaster are actually incredibly low. In 2022, there was just one fatal airplane accident for every 6.5 million flights. And, considering the pricier tickets that’d come with Tatarenko’s invention, it’s currently not at the top of any airline’s wish list.

Airbag Motorcycle Safety Vest

Whizzing around sharp bends at over 200 mph, with nothing but a helmet and a leather suit between you and the road, it’s fair to say motorbike riders have kahunas of steel. With no external frame to protect riders in the event of a crash, it’s no wonder that the fatality rate for motorbike accidents is a staggering 50 times higher than for car accidents.

But French entrepreneur Gerard Thevenot is looking to improve those troubling statistics, with the Helite airbag. Unlike cars, most motorbike manufacturers don’t build in airbags as standard; there’s just not enough space, and with riders more likely to fly off, they’re not as effective as they would be in a car.

Not that that’s a problem for the ingenious invention, because the airbag isn’t on the motorbike, it’s on the rider.

The Helite Turtle 2 Air Vest is a deployable airbag that riders can wear! In case of a fall, a tether attached to the vest will trigger a replaceable carbon dioxide canister, which will inflate the airbag vest in 0.094 seconds, faster than you can blink! When blown up, the airbag offers optimal protection to the back, kidneys, chest, and hips, while also stabilizing the head and neck.

If that wasn’t enough, the back of the vest is made from SAS-TEC armor; a protective material that creates a turtle-like protective shell for the rider. Any daredevils looking to get their hands on that piece of turtle-y awesome kit won’t get it cheap, with the vest selling for around $700.

Avalanche Airbag

When a mass of snow on a mountain slope is destabilized, it can slide downhill causing an avalanche and you don’t want to get stuck in the middle of one of those. Large avalanches can contain as much as a million tons of snow, and travel faster than 200 miles per hour!

So, no matter how fast you can ski, you can’t escape those deathtraps and as such, they take the lives of more than 150 people every year. But there is a way to avoid that fate, and it involves an airbag. But we’re not talking about road collisions or crashes here, how can an airbag save you from being annihilated by an avalanche?

While it won’t stop you from getting swept away, it may prevent you from being buried deep underneath the snow. All you have to do is pull the handle attached to the shoulder strap, and a pressurized cartridge inflates an airbag above a user’s backpack in seconds. But how exactly is this meant to help?

Well, there’s a principle known as granular convection; it is where shaking or rotating motions cause particles to roll over each other, with smaller ones falling through the spaces between the larger particles, forcing the larger particles to the surface. So, when smaller snow particles are shaken, they’re more likely to settle into the spaces between the large item, aka a human, and their voluminous airbag.

So, anyone who suddenly finds themselves in the midst of an avalanche can pull that cord and know they’ll end up closer to the top rather than being buried at the bottom. Studies have shown that the survival rate of avalanche victims is 11% higher with those that deploy airbags.

Safeback Avalanche Survival Gear

Let’s say you did go skiing without your airbag, and you did trigger an avalanche, and now you’re stuck somewhere under a freezing slope of snow, worried you might freeze to death. There are good news and bad news. The good news is you probably won’t freeze to death! The bad news is that’s because you’ll probably suffocate long before you freeze.

A recent study found that suffocation was responsible for three-quarters of avalanche fatalities, while hypothermia accounted for just 1%. Being buried within tightly packed snow causes the victim’s own breath to gradually replace the breathable oxygen with more and more carbon dioxide.

After 35 minutes stuck in the snow, the chances of survival are just 37%. To make matters even worse, packed snow gradually becomes dense, like concrete, meaning movement is almost impossible. So, the chances of someone reaching into their backpack and grabbing something like an oxygen mask are practically zero.

Enter the Safeback; an air supply system worn on the user’s back, enabling them to breathe in an avalanche burial without a mouthpiece!

All it takes to activate the device is a simple pull of the handle on the item’s shoulder strap. From here, the Safeback retrieves clean air from behind the user’s back, before pumping it through to two nozzles by their shoulders.

The nozzles will pump oxygen around the person’s mouth and dilute the carbon dioxide levels at the same time.

The ingenious idea is crucial for anyone buried in an avalanche, with survival time underneath the snow jumping to 90 minutes for Safeback users. As a result, rescuers have more vital minutes to drag victims out of the snow stack.

XStat Bullet Wound Syringe

RevMedx has created a syringe device, packed with 92 circular sponges, designed to save soldiers and civilians from some of the nastiest wounds possible: those inflicted by gunshots. It can take as little as 3 minutes for someone to lose enough blood for it to have fatal consequences, but how do some tiny sponges save a life?

The XStat works by injecting small sponges into a wound cavity with a simple syringe applicator. In the wound, each sponge is capable of absorbing 3 milliliters of blood. Collectively, they can swell and fill the wound cavity within 20 seconds, stopping bleeding without manual compression.

XStat’s super sponges are effective at preventing blood loss for up to 4 hours, giving wounded victims enough time to reach a medical facility, where their injuries can be properly treated. Safe to say that anyone whose life has been saved by those super sponges is XStatic that that device exists!

Schmitz Mittz, The World's Toughest Safety Glove

Randy Schmitz has designed a pair of gloves that are virtually indestructible. His creation, which goes by the awesome name of Schmitz Mittz, was made for first responders and those working in tough-on-your-hands industries like on oil and gas rigs.

The outer layer of the gloves is made from Armortex Kevlar, a durable abrasion-resistant fabric. Carbon fiber bumpers cover the fingers and thumb, making your digits virtually smash-proof. To top it off, the protective inner liners are made up of slash and chemical-resistant layers.

If you’re jaw somehow isn’t on the floor yet, those gloves are also heat resistant. So much so that the palms can withstand temperatures up to 2,500°F, and face 20 seconds of direct contact with flames.

You’d be forgiven for thinking those great gloves would cost you an arm and a leg, but you can get a pair for under $90.

Magnetic Slime Robot 

Researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong have created a Soft Robot. Although they’re not technically robots. The glob is actually controlled by magnets. It’s made up of magnetic particles suspended in a slime material made from polyvinyl alcohol and borax.

After inserting that gooey glob into a person’s body, it’s controlled and moved by a magnet outside of a patient. Thanks to its viscous structure, the slime can squeeze through tight spaces in the body to recover life-threatening objects that have been accidentally swallowed, like batteries.

But, benevolent as those gooey guardians seem, there’s one slight problem. Despite their ability to retrieve potentially lethal objects, the slime’s magnetic particles are toxic. So, it's probably not something you want slithering through your insides. Scientists are currently working on a fail-proof protective layer that prevents the slime from emitting toxic particles inside the body.

Fire Extinguishing Ball

Astoundingly, 90% of people don’t know how to use a basic fire extinguisher. Talk about playing with fire! Fortunately, though, there exists a product to save us from our amateur fire extinguisher skills. Introducing the Fire Extinguishing Ball.

The Pokéball-looking device, created by ELIDE FIRE, is the world’s first self-activating handheld fire extinguisher, capable of putting out all classes of fire. So, no need to worry about any handles or nozzles or fire sources. Just make sure you throw the ball on the fire.

But how can a ball put out a fire? Well, just 3 seconds after making contact with a flame, a trigger inside the ball detonates a fuse on its surface. An instant blast occurs, removing oxygen from the fire area, which is one thing all fires need to burn while dispersing a dry chemical powder to quickly extinguish any remaining flames. And, with a puff of smoke, the fire is gone!

Currently, two different-sized fire extinguisher balls exist: The 4-inch diameter model will set you back $95 and has an effective fire-dampening range of 12 feet. Even more impressively, the 6-inch wide ball can put out fires over an area of 24 feet, although that bad boy comes in at a slightly pricier $120. Still, that’s a lot cheaper than buying a whole new house, so it's fair to say that these fire-extinguishing balls are lit!

I hope you were amazed at these incredible inventions that can save your life! Thanks for reading.