Tongue Sucker

Just in case you’re in the market for one of those deals you normally shake your head about and say, “I wish I’d been in on the ground floor of that one,” the ground floor of this one is still available.

In 2007, the INDEX: jury awarded a design with the rather challenging name Tongue Sucker. In what might throw people at first, the category of the design was Work.

The reason for the category? – because this could be a paramedic’s best friend when surrounded by people at a disaster scene, people lying unconscious, their tongues typically starting to block their airways, thus causingtheir brains to run out of oxygen.

The reason for the name? – because that’s what it does: It sucks your tongue out of the back of your throat! An unconscious person’s tongue will fall to the back of the throat, blocking the airways, and without an oxygen supply, an unconscious person will die or suffer severe brain damage within 4 minutes. The average paramedic arrival time in London at the time was 12 minutes.

The Tongue Sucker is a small plastic chamber with a bright colored bulb-like air reservoir, which allows untrained bystanders at the scene of an accident to free the airways of an unconscious person immediately and effectively. Squeeze the bulb, place it over the tip of the tongue of the injured person and release. Once in place, the first aider is free to perform CPR, call for help or assist other casualties.

The inspiration for the design was the July 2005 bombings of several London Underground targets. A group of Royal College of Art and Imperial College industrial design engineers in London found out that a disaster zone of the kind created by the 2005 bombings calls for a technique that even an untrained person can use to free the airways of unconscious victims very quickly.

The engineers worked their way through some 60 prototypic models, looking for the best one. They consulted with elderly citizens from the University of the Third Age in London to research the design’s ergonomic qualities.

And they won not only INDEX: Award 2007 but also the Audi Design for Life Grant (2007), the Deutsche Bank Pyramid Award (2006), the Design to Our Future Selves Award (2006) and more.

And now, implementation is the issue. We hope to see a manufacturer step forward to produce the Tongue Sucker so paramedics and other emergency responders – aided at disaster scenes by citizens – all have a new tool in saving lives when every minute counts.