JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — We pride ourselves on profiling members of the military, but also veterans who used their time in the military to launch a second career. That's the case for this week's Stories of Service, where a fighter pilot met a man researching groundbreaking technology.
For nearly a decade, Lieutenant Commander Craig Gile flew jets at hundreds of miles per hour with the United States Navy. During his time in the Navy, Gile met someone in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency who developed technology for a device called CoolMitt.
"CoolMitt is technology that is proven to be the best way to dump heat out of your body and control your core temperature when you're in an overheated state," said Gile.
CoolMitt is a portable and battery-operated device attached to a mitt in which the user places their hand inside. Chilled water then flows through the mitt, a further description can be found here.
"It's flowing at the ideal temperature and flow rate to maximize pulling the heat out of your hand and allowing colder blood to flow to your heart and cool you from the inside out," said Gile.
It's a process that Gile and his team have trademarked called vasocooling. CoolMitt is not yet FDA-cleared, but 60 professional teams in the United States use it, as well as ship building manufacturers in Mississippi.
"They can use this multiple times throughout the day to address that overheating and that has a safety and wellness component for workers," said Gile, "if you're not overheated you're going to have better cognitive functions so you're not going to have as many mishaps in the workforce."
Gile hopes that the next step for CoolMitt is to design a product that allows for multiple hands at the same time. More information about CoolMitt can be found here.
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