I have always been proud of the energy and ingenuity of our country's citizenry. So, in these times of hardship and challenge, when individuals are dying of COVID-19 without necessary medical support, I am especially grateful. In particular, I cite homemakers sewing masks, college students who use 3-D printers for their manufacture, and General Motors for making ventilators on the production line.

My father, a thoracic surgeon, was ahead of his time. He recognized long before the medical world did the value of ventilators for extensive surgical procedures. Evidently this equipment wasn't available in the 1950s, so with the local auto mechanic my father designed his own. On the tripod base of a discarded floor fan the two men placed a Plexiglass cylinder to hold a balloon-like bellows. Then they attached one end of a flexible tube to it and the other end to a face mask. To simulate breathing they used a repurposed automobile windshield wiper that forced the bellows to expand and retract in sync with the patient's breathing. It worked!

Onward with such energy and ingenuity in the crucial work of saving lives!

George Willauer

Old Lyme