An Article From
The Orange County Register
FLIERS GET A LEG UP
Frequent traveler patents seat for jets
that
could prevent ‘Economy Class Syndrome(DVT)
By Mayrav Saar
Mission Viejo,
California.
 Arnold
Jonas is not a little man. His thighs are plump and support
the round belly that rests upon them when he sits. His shoulders
are wide. His head is sizable. Even his glasses are unusually
large, taking up half his face - his great big smile takes
up the other half.
On frequent flights between Orange County and his native
Israel, Jonas found his girth to be a constricting, uncomfortable
- and, yes, big - problem.
It also gave him a big idea. Jonas, 58, realized that if
his feet were lifted just slightly off the ground, if they
were able to dangle the way kids' legs dangled, his blood
could keep pumping through his legs and there would be less
pressure on his thighs. He spent the better part of 20 years
playing with this idea, sitting with his fists under his
knees to give him leverage, piling flight pillows under
his legs.
He once brought a
2-by-4 on board to tuck behind his knees. But he couldn't
keep his hands from tiring, the pillows from slipping or
the plank from becoming uncomfortable during the 13-hour
flights.
"It got to the point that just when I thought about
the flight I felt pain," Jonas said.
In October 2000, Jonas learned the discomfort he was feeling
could be fatal. Newspapers and television stations worldwide
carried the story of a British woman who died of a pulmonary
embolism in London's Heathrow Airport shortly after a flight
from Singapore.
She had developed deep vein thrombosis, also known as "Economy
Class Syndrome," a condition that causes the blood
to clot in one of the deep veins near the center of the
leg and blocks the flow of blood back to the heart.
Jonas realized he was onto something, so - much to his wife's
chagrin - the retired writer became an inventor.
Tinkering in his Mission Viejo garage and traveling to Europe
to talk to designers, Jonas invented and patented an airline
seat that allows passengers to keep the blood pumping in
their legs without taking up too much room in the already-cramped
rows.
His invention, called NewSit, hasn't yet garnered much more
than lukewarm interest from airlines. But doctors who have
seen it are impressed.
"NewSit allows (passengers) to wiggle
(their) legs and feet in the air, which is precisely the
effective way to enhance blood flow, thus eliminating DVT,"
wrote Dr. Hanan Lobel, a Beverly Hills cardiologist who
examined the seat for Jonas' patent application.
In its most mild form, DVT can injure the valves in the
leg veins that help pump blood back up to the heart, leading
to venous stasis ulcers, chronic open wounds around the
ankles.
Left untreated, clots can detach, travel through the bloodstream
to the lungs and become lodged in a pulmonary artery. Large
clots that completely block the pulmonary artery can be
fatal, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.
"It's a real problem," said
Dr. Roy Fujitani, chief of vascular surgery at UCI Medical
Center. "In a typical year, 2million people (nationally)
are treated for DVT, 1million of these are caused by air
travel."
Annually, nearly 2,000 people die from DVT, according to
the NHLBI.
Fujitani has not seen Jonas' invention and could not comment
on it, but he said anything that keeps the legs pumping
is a good idea on long flights.
Even such tangentially implicit approval gives Jonas hope
that the thing parked inside his garage will revolutionize
air travel and save lives.
For his prototype, the inventor purchased two chairs from
KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, leaving one as is for comparison's
sake and renovating the other with a movable part that passengers
can pump back and forth with their calves. He is fond of
demonstrating the maneuver, reclining in the chair and smiling
wide.
 "It's
excellent. Just like a swing," he says
in a thick Israeli accent.
"You stay healthier, and
another advantage is you have a good time."
(Photographer – CindyYamanaka,
The Register)
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