Naperville has always been a place where innovation meets community. Danny Puknaitis and Allen Xu are great examples of that. During NCTV17’s “The Morning Show,” the two shared their inspirations behind their inventions, both previously featured on Naperville News 17, and how they continue to help make a difference.
Trailblazing technology for fighting fires
Puknaitis has not only dedicated his career to protecting lives as a firefighter but has also, together with fellow firefighter Michael Jost, co-created a groundbreaking new tool for the industry.
The Poseidon Nozzle is a narrow box, several feet long, crafted from aircraft-grade aluminum and perforated to allow water to escape. The device attaches to a standard fire hose and then slides directly under a vehicle, into the undercarriage. This allows a firefighter to actively cool the underside of an electric vehicle, where the lithium-ion battery is typically located. It can also extinguish a fire from a car’s engine while rescuing a passenger trapped inside.
“So both my lieutenant, Mike Jost, and we’re at Naperville Station 10, and we’re both firefighters. And four years ago, we started seeing more EVs… We started thinking to ourselves, what happens when an electric vehicle catches on fire in somebody’s house or their garage…What are we doing? And let’s talk about this now before it gets to like an emergency at two in the morning…So from a very simplistic standpoint, understanding the battery components of an electric vehicle and where they’re stored, we’re like, we just need to get water underneath this car and take all the complications out of an electric vehicle and break it down to its basics,” said Puknaitis…