Life net

When used in the proper conditions, it allowed people on upper floors of burning buildings an opportunity to jump to safety, usually to ground level.

Owing to their former prevalence, life nets often feature in popular culture as a running gag, especially in cartoons where they often appear in use during scenes where a fire is taking place.

During the American Civil War, Browder enlisted in the Company C, 60th Ohio Infantry of the Union Army at the age of 17, and was wounded at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House on May 9, 1864.

[3]In Newark, NJ in 1955, a would-be suicide was successfully caught in a life net after jumping from an eighth story window.

[9] In the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire on March 25, 1911, girls jumped into life nets from the ninth floor with their arms intertwined and the impact ripped the canvas and tore the springs from the frame, resulting in their deaths.

During the Hotel Polen fire in Amsterdam on May 9, 1977, firefighters could not successfully deploy a life net in a narrow, congested alley.

[11] In 1958, a fire department official in Eugene, Oregon expressed reservations, saying that the term "life net" was misleading, and that they should be used only as a last resort.

Adams has concluded that the life net was no longer mentioned after 1983, and writes that they are not discussed in current training manuals for firefighters.