All 75 firefighters of the Town of Manchester Fire Department this week were blindfolded, told to crawl on their hands and knees on the floor of a huge room scattered with single beds, and retrieve a sounding device no larger than a pack of cigarettes.

It was all part of an exercise that might one day save a life, Capt. Jack Hughes said today.

The new fluorescent-yellow plastic device, Life Gard II, will be attached to every firefighter's air pack this week. The battery-operated, motion-sensitive device has the capacity to sound a 92-decibel alarm when a firefighter who is wearing the unit stops moving, Hughes said.

For instance, if a firefighter working inside of a burning house is suddenly trapped underneath a collapsed ceiling and cannot move, the device will set off an alarm alerting other firefighters.

Life Gard II, which can also be set off manually by a switch on its side, sounds an 82-decibel warning alarm 38 seconds after a firefighter has stopped moving. If the device is not switched off, the louder alarm sounds. The device must then be shut off manually.

The Manchester Fire Department is the only fire department in the area that has purchased the new devices, which cost about $90 each, he said.

"It's the up and coming thing now," Hughes said. "It is my estimate that within a few years these things will be mandatory all over the state"

Hughes said the longest time it took firefighters � who were paired in twos � to find the device during the drill was 5 to 7 minutes. Because the small device was usually centered in the middle of the room, Hughes said, the alarm tended to "bounce" off the walls and confuse firefighters.

"Usually, these things would be attached to a body, which is much larger and usually more easy to find than this little tiny thing" Hughes said.

Hughes said the need for the device in fire departments across the North East was exemplified in July after a highly publicized fire at an auto dealership in Hackensack, N.J. resulted in the death of five firefighters.

During the fire in New Jersey, two firefighters were trapped in a room made of cinderblock and were attempting to call for help on portable radios, Hughes said. Because other firefighters could not locate the two, they died of smoke inhalation. Three others were killed when the roof collapsed, he said.

Several members of the Town of Manchester Fire Department were equipped with the new device early today when a fire broke out in one of the classrooms at East Catholic High School, Hughes said.

October 28, 1988