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Iowa Teacher's Invention Could Save Lives

Fighting Chance Solutions
The "sleeve" fitted on a classroom door

Since the December 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, there have been more than 70 shootingsin schools around the country. Just this week, there was another at Reynolds High School in Oregon. In order to help teachers be better prepared to protect their students in situations like these, Daniel Nietzel, a Muscatine middle school teacher, has taken matters into his own hands.His new invention, “The Sleeve” is designed to help keep active shooters out of classrooms. 

Nietzel says that teachers are taught to tie a belt or a cord around the hydraulic fixture on the top of a classroom door, but that "the belt method" isn't good enough. "It takes a long time to get a cord, stand on a chair, and tie a knot," he says. "In our training, the cord was ripped off and the shooter came in and killed all of us." 

"The Sleeve" can withstand around 550 pounds of pressure from the outside and sells for $65. 

Lindsey Moon is IPR's Senior Digital Producer