The Future Exit Sign

Life threatening emergencies happen quickly and usually without warning. Survival depends largely upon one’s ability to act swiftly and decisively.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security provides guidance for individuals on how to prepare and respond to an active shooter. If an active shooter is in your vicinity, you need determine how to best protect your own life:

• Run/Evacuate: If there is an accessible escape path, evacuate.
• Hide: If evacuation is not possible, hide out of view and try to prevent the active shooter from entering your location by locking or blocking the door.
• Fight: As a last resort and when in imminent danger, attempt to disrupt or incapacitate the active shooter.

Run, hide, or fight is the traditional response plan. Active shooter trainers and other emergency professionals are trained to be prepared and handle dangerous situations. However, the average person is not trained. Even though the run, hide, or fight plan seems straightforward, it can be very difficult to implement during an emergency.

Most individuals are not properly trained in how to immediately respond to a life-threatening event such as an active shooter and this leads to confusion. In an emergency, it is difficult to find the safest route leading to uncontrolled chaos and fear. Confusion, chaos, and fear go hand in hand with one’s fight or flight response. Fight or flight physiological effects hamper the ability to think clearly. Together, the inability to think clearly and find a safe location led to injury and casualties.

To help overcome the limitations of decision making in a crisis or emergency, safety measures and systems can be put into place.

How To Increase Odds of Survival in an Emergency

John Leach, a qualified military survival instructor, says that to survive such emergency situations, “You just need to know what to do” (Michael Bond 2015). John Leach portends that 75% of people are so overcome by fear that their brain cannot process information fast enough to know what to do or where to go.

The first step towards increased safety measures starts with the Exit Sign. In 1911, a fire claimed the lives of 145 factory workers in Manhattan. This tragedy led to the development and requirement of the Exit Sign. Today, the Exit Sign is required to be placed above doors to indicate where an exit is in an emergency situation.

However, the closest exit may not be the safest route during a dangerous event and buildings are becoming increasingly complex. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), “Many safety experts are questioning whether the standard static exit signage is enough, considering the growing complexity of building layouts as well as the emergence of other public hazards, such as active shooter events, that require rapid movement of people to locations other than the main entrance” (NFPA 2023).

Safety experts have identified the need for a more dynamic exit sign system with sensors to detect the threat, controls to safeguard, and the ability to adapt based on real-time conditions.

Currently, there are various systems and software that detect the location of a threat, notify emergency responders, provide safeguards and lock down facilities, and provide safe separation. Even though these systems detect, provide safe separation, and provide notification, these systems are missing directional evacuation guidance.

The Safepro Technologies Soteria System provides the solution through dynamic visual laser projection guidance and is the exit sign of the future.

The Exit Sign of the Future

As the exit sign of the future, the Soteria System eliminates the reliance on human decision making, separates innocent from danger, reduces confusion and chaos, speeds up evacuation, and reduces casualties.

As the most comprehensive emergency evaluation system, the Soteria System:

• Utilizes sensors to detect and adapt to the location of a threat.
• Provides notification of the threat to occupants and authorities.
• Initiates immediate lockdown for those who cannot be guided away from threat.
• Provides visual laser projection signals to eliminate the need for decision making and guides individuals to safety and away from the threat.
• Uses laser projection to guide first responders towards the threat.

As an emergency evacuation system, the Soteria System has been designed to protect and save lives in dangerous events (i.e., active shooters, fires, etc.).