Madhya Pradesh: Inventor Cardiologist bags patent for suicide preventing ceiling fan

The device has a hollow metal tube inside the fan's shaft to which the motor and blades are attached. Hinged to the shaft are four heavy springs designed to take an additional weight of 25 kg besides the motor and the blades. The moment the weight limit exceeds, the springs uncoils, leading to a soft landing of the person without stretching of the neck or straining the noose, explained Dr Sharma while describing the mechanism behind this device.

He has also attached a siren which starts blaring on shaft displacement. This will alert the persons present nearby.

“I am also making an upgrade in the device and now apart from a soft landing and siren going off, the device will also send alerts on the mobile phones of the concerning people and authorities with this upgrade,” Sharma informed TOI.

Dr Sharma calls his fan "a simple contraption rigged up by using plain common sense." Speaking to TOI on the reason behind the idea, Dr Sharma mentioned the incident where the boy had committed suicide. “His inconsolable father kept cursing the day he replaced the table fan with a ceiling fan in his room,” he shared.

That incident got Dr Sharma thinking on the safety features that could somehow be put in the ceiling fan so it can't be used as a tool of death.  A week of hard thinking and several trips to the welders and mechanics later, the doctor came up with an innovative way.

“My intention was not monetary benefit, but government should take steps and make it mandatory for fan manufacturers, like the pressure release valve is mandatory in pressure cookers,” he stressed.

Dr RS Sharma, first DM Cardiology in entire Madhya Pradesh completed his studies from the premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi.

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