After 27 years as an emergency RN and over a year as a frontline nurse in the Covid-19 pandemic, Rhode Islander Timothy Aurelio has seen a lot. But, during the height of last year’s surge, the Nurse of the Week was taken aback when the CDC told hospitals that workers should tote their (suddenly-classed-as-reusable) N95 masks in a brown paper bag. One day, as he arrived at the hospital, Aurelio says he saw “This security guard had his N95 in a brown paper bag, and it was completely crushed. His metal nose bridge was completely flat.”
There was some logic to the instruction, as a brown paper bag permits the free flow of air around the N95 and should help prevent bacteria from growing inside the mask. However, Aurelio quickly discovered the downside: “With a mask in this integrity, it’s not going to protect you… I saw their masks being stored in their duffel bags, and in their pocketbooks, and hanging from the hook next to the printer Anything from the air is dropping down into their mask.” As he told a local reporter, “Last July… we didn’t have a safe place to store our N95 masks and our masks were getting crushed and soiled, people were leaving them on the desk.” In fact, he added, “This is how I first developed the idea: a security guard had his N95 in a brown paper bag and it was intertwined in his belt. And I said, ‘What is that?'”
This could literally be a matter of life or death, so the RN began to think of a way to create PPE for his PPE. Aurelio’s solution? The N95 Mask Preserver. Designed with the aid of engineers at MassChallenge Rhode Island, RIHub, and Michael Katz of the University of Rhode Island, Aurelio’s PPE protector consists of a hinged case made of medical-grade plastic, which he says is “the same material that’s used for our hospital syringes. It also has an additive called WITHSTAND, which is antimicrobial, anti-fungal, anti-mold, and anti-mildew.” The Preserver also includes a 1/4″ hole so healthcare workers can clip the case to their scrubs so they always have their PPE ready to hand.
Aurelio’s N95 preserver has proved so popular that he now has a patent pending. He told ABC in Rhode Island, “The docs at the ER at my place are wearing them, our nurses are wearing them and using them, and they’re seeing such a difference in the integrity of their mask.”
As he sees it, Aurelio was acting as a nurse more than as an entrepreneur: “I saw that my colleagues were getting sick with Covid,” he said. “If I can eliminate one of those risk factors by having a safe N95 mask that’s in good integrity, that’s why I did this.”
For more on Aurelio’s N95 tote, visit his website.
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