5/14/2020 Chicago
NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California partnered with Antelope Valley Hospital, the City of Lancaster, Virgin Galactic, The Spaceship Company (TSC), Antelope Valley College and members of the Antelope Valley Task Force to design and manufacturer a positive pressure helmet for noninvasive ventilation to treat COVID-19 patients. Last week a team of engineers and scientists sent us the prototype of NIV positive pressure helmet for a review.
A few days later Aurika Savickaite had a Zoom video meeting call with the helmet designer, Mike Buttigieg, David Voracek at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center, Dr. Daniel B. Khodabakhsh an emergency medicine physician at the Antelope Valley Hospital and others.
During the Zoom meeting, Aurika Savickaite gave her and Dr. JP Kress's feedback about this helmet prototype and what further improvements can be made.
According to Mr. David Voracek: our current status is working the FDA EUA filing. We know that there is a need for these types of helmet designs, we feel that if EUA comes through and if tasked we could get 50,000 of them made easily. Just to make sure you know, this was created as an Emergency Use device, not a production unit. We are looking for emergency use authorization from the FDA. (5/5/2020)
Here is a video review this helmet
Video review of all 5 NIV helmets that are made in the USA (as of 5/19/2020)