Abstract: A portable safety vest (20) includes an inflatable collar (22) which functions as a personal floatation device, a transparent, inflatable air bag (50), and an air mask (60). A cylinder of compressed air (40) has a seal (41) and, when the seal (41) is broken by a triggering mechanism (42, 43, 44), the compressed air expands and fills the air bag (50) and the collar (22). The air bag (50) is preferably large enough to hold at least a two-minute supply of air to allow one time to escape from an area filled with smoke or noxious or toxic gas.

Abstract: A mechanical hydraulic dampening device having kinetic energy dissipating baffles in its interior with no moving parts, which device is included in a moving tank car carrying a liquid load, such as for example a railroad tank car, having a rupture disk assembly at the top of the tank to prevent fracturing of the tank due to hydraulic hammer action, the device being located in line between the rupture disk and the liquid load. When the tank is suddenly moved, the shifting liquid load passes through the pipe-like device, impacting against a series of longitudinally spaced, opposed, diverging, upwardly angled, flat plates each extending across more than 50% of the interior of the pipe body of the device, causing its energy and the hydraulic hammer action to be dissipated.