Surviving the Unthinkable: A Life-Saving Innovation for Vehicle Submersion Emergencies

Imagine you and your loved ones are driving in the car and suddenly get caught in a flash flood - water is quickly rising around you and filling your car. Your car begins to drift, destination unknown. Your heart is pounding. You frantically attempt to open the door, but it's jammed shut.

The chilling realization that your life hangs by a thread becomes an inescapable reality.

You now have at most ONE minute to get out of the vehicle, or you WILL DROWN. 

Think fast - What do you do?

Call for help? What did that article say? Wait for pressure to equalize? Smash a window with… was it the head rest? No wait, it was the seat belt buckle, right? Wait for someone to arrive? Panic sets in as you grapple with limited options.

None of these actions will save you and your family. 

You might have a specially designed window-breaking tool like a hammer but wait, where did you put it? And, if you find it, it may prove futile in newer cars equipped with laminate or shatter-resistant windows, which 1 in 3 cars sold in the USA since 2018 is equipped with. Do you even know your car’s window type, and if it is breakable with a hammer? 

Every year around the globe, thousands of people drown in submerged vehicles because they do not know what to do to save themselves in the crucial first minute after submersion. Whether it is from flash floods or accidents in which the vehicle enters a body of water, vehicle submersion is an incredibly dangerous and often fatal situation.

I want to change that.

This mission is deeply personal to me. A few years ago, while living in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, I almost lost my husband to a flash flood. Thankfully, he was rescued. Sadly, many others were not so lucky, and my heart still aches today for the hundreds of lives claimed by that unforgiving flood.

That harrowing incident ignited a burning determination within me to make a difference, to do everything within my power to help car occupants survive submersion emergencies.

This led my family and I to found AWOS Technologies , a company with a groundbreaking solution that employs sensing technology to help people escape their vehicle and increase their chances of surviving this terrifying situation. AWOS (Automatic Window Opening System) offers a long overdue solution that overcomes the shortcomings of existing methods of escaping a submerged vehicle.

The single most effective action to help you and your loved ones survive a vehicle in a water emergency is to open your windows. It allows you to escape the vehicle or be extracted from it.

Unfortunately, in a submerged vehicle, there is so much working against you to prevent this from happening. You might be panicking or dazed and not thinking straight. Doors won’t open due to the pressure of the surrounding water. Some car features like automatic door locking can fail when exposed to water and remain locked, not to mention the shatter-resistant windows!

By the time the water reaches the side windows, the same water pressure that jammed the doors will make it impossible to lower the windows. Worse, breaking windows while submerged is extremely challenging, even if they are the breakable type.

What you need in this situation is to open your windows and get out immediately. So that’s precisely what we’ve built: AWOS takes charge in these situations by detecting emergencies and opening your windows automatically so that you can focus on the most important self-rescue actions: seatbelts off, out immediately, children and vulnerable people first. No more guesswork or frantic phone calls, because AWOS also instantly issues a distress notification to emergency services providers so that help is on the way before you even think of calling 911, keeping your focus on getting out and reducing the time it will take for help to get to you. 

We developed this sensor technology with one primary goal: to save lives. With the rise of flood-causing weather and the advent of driverless car technologies, our mission is more important than ever. And we are confident that through raising awareness and driving vehicle safety policy changes, we can achieve this goal.

I look forward to working with you to make this dream a reality.