Dr. Chris Brooks
Dr. Chris Brooks was a physician, scientist, and inventor.
He published or presented over 75 papers on various human factors aspects of survival suits, helicopter ditchings, life rafts, marine survival and drowning. He wrote the only English textbook on lifejackets and two other textbooks; one on surviving a helicopter ditching and one on emergency breathing systems for helicopter underwater escape.
For his contribution to improving safety conditions for all those who fly offshore, he was presented with the Sir James Martin gold medal by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1998. In both 2000 and 2002, he received the Joe Haley award for the best paper published in the Aerospace Medical Journal in the area of rotary wing aviation medicine. He co-shares five patents on helicopter escape exits.
Dr. Brooks was the 2015 recipient of the Theodore C. Lyster Award from the Aerospace Medical Association for his outstanding contributions to enhancing the survivability of helicopter water ditching through helicopter underwater escape training programs and improvements in cold water immersion protective equipment.
Dr. Brooks’ career spanned over 30 years, during which he relentlessly pursued improvements in helicopter underwater escape training techniques and concurrent improvements in aircrew cold water survival equipment. These programs are especially important in Canadian and other maritime rotary wing operations where cold water ditching is a constant threat. Dr. Brooks pursued cold water life-support equipment development, including improved life-jacket and immersion suit design and emergency breathing apparatus. He led studies and personally tested new equipment both in the lab and in actual cold water sea trials. He also led the development of improved underwater escape training programs at Survival Systems in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has carefully documented these problems and solutions in a series of scientific papers published in Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine(ASEM), NATO AGARD publications, and elsewhere.
Dr. Brooks passed away on October 3rd, 2024. A group of his colleagues collaborated to bring his final work, a book titled Ditching, Ditching, Ditching, to completion and make it available to the audience for which it was intended. It will be published in early 2026.
Copyright IASST 2014, AsMA 2015
