Seizure Emergency SafeSteps Sign (multilingual)

The Seizure Emergency SafeSteps Platform - SafeSteps Sign

Brought to by the Epilepsy + Data Science Lab

What is this?

This sign is intended for those who care for someone with seizures. It provides 4 quick reminder messages for what to do at the time of a seizure: 1) nothing in mouth, 2) 5 minutes? call 911 (or country specific code) 3) protect the head 4) lay down on side.

Why are these messages important?

1. NOTHING IN MOUTH.There is a myth that you can swallow your tongue and die during a seizure, and therefore people should put something into your mouth to save you. In fact, our lab published a study about this (read paper). This is a foolish myth without factual basis. Indeed, many people do put things into the mouth of people having seizures, and then the patient gets hurt (like breaking a tooth) or swallows something that they might choke on. Putting something in the mouth only ADDS danger. Never do it.

2. 5 MINUTES? CALL 911. Seizures that last longer than 5 minutes are likely to cause brain damage. Time is brain. Most seizure last less than 2 minutes, so if a patient is still convulsing after 5 minutes, they are having a life threatening emergency, and there is no time to do anything except call an ambulance, who likely have life-saving medicine onboard. (note- see below about the emergency phone number - other numbers are provided as well).

3. PROTECT THE HEAD. Patients that have seizures can injury their head. It is easy to move things away from them, cover sharp things with pillows, blankets, clothing or other soft objects.

4. LAY DOWN ON SIDE. Patients sometimes can vomit during or after a seizure. If this happens, they should vomit OUT of their body, rather than IN to their lungs, which can cause aspiration pneumonia.

How should I print this?

It can be printed in 1 color or two. With a single color printer it can be easily printed in two colors using a layer height color swap.

There are a number of models available here. They are provided as STL files in one color. You can print the whole thing in 1 color with that. 

Also note: these signs can be used in hot places. PETG is much more heat stable than PLA - it is recommended to use PETG for SafeSteps.

I printed the English version in 0.2mm layer height, no supports, no brim.

What about my country (for English)?

Depending on your country, you will want a different emergency phone number listed. Files are listed with the telephone number being used.

*Countries repeat across rows when they officially support more than one ambulance code.

**Codes like 112 or 911 that redirect to a primary number (e.g., 111 in New Zealand) are only shown when an official source confirms they function in parallel for ambulance dispatch.

What about other languages?

Additional languages have not yet been medically verified, however, we have experimental versions for a large set of languages based on AI translation. These languages are supposedly sufficient to cover 6.6 billion people according to AI as they they are the top languages spoken in the world. Given that this is unverified, take that fact with a grain of salt. Languages covered so far:  "English", "Mandarin Chinese", "Hindi", "Spanish", "Modern Standard Arabic", "French", "Bengali", "Portuguese", "Russian", "Indonesian", "Urdu", "German", "Japanese", "Nigerian Pidgin", "Egyptian Arabic", "Marathi", "Vietnamese", "Telugu", "Hausa", "Turkish" and “Hebrew”. If you happen to be medically trained for epilepsy and are a native speaker of any of these outside English, please let us know if our AI translations are culturally appropriate and medically correct so that we can update which languages have been verified thus far.

Verified languages to date: 

• English.

How can I customize these further?

If you want to build your own customized SafeSteps models, you can use the OpenSCAD file (.scad) to change the 4 messages, change sizes, etc.

How was this made?

This was the outgrowth of other cool SafeSteps project. It was made using Google Gemini and OpenSCAD, with several iterations. What you are getting here is the result of nearly 4 years of incremental improvements.

Tell me more about SafeSteps:

Go to this link.

Lab motto: RELENTLESS INCREMENTAL IMPROVEMENT