Nathan Clark isn’t used to his classwork affecting homeland security.

But that’s what happened this spring when he and five classmates at Kansas University helped design a new emergency-room gurney that could treat patients of a mass-casualty attack or natural disaster. They presented their design to a meeting of government officials earlier this month in Washington, D.C.

“In every other design course I’ve had, we’ve had weird assignments like, ‘Let’s conceptualize a fun toy for a blind, handicapped child,'” the senior from Topeka said. “It usually becomes a slide in your portfolio. But this one, with us going to Washington to show this thing to people in suits, and to know in a few years it could be a real gurney, it was pretty cool.”

Clark presented the gurney proposal May 8 to a group of 300 people, including national media, emergency response workers, doctors, members of Congress and officials from the Department of Homeland Security.

The students’ gurney was designed for daily use but would be more effective than current gurneys in cases of mass casualties.

The gurney is designed with a battery pack and oxygen generator that would make it self-sufficient because it wouldn’t need to be plugged into a wall. It has a storage space below the mattress portion for the equipment. It also is lightweight, easily stored and durable.

“They wanted one gurney to work in multiple situations,” Clark said. “They wanted it to function day-to-day, but in case of an emergency or a terrorist attack, to function in a surge-capacity situation.”

The storage rack system — instead of building the equipment into the gurney — allows hospitals to upgrade technology as it becomes available.

“The word ‘marriage’ came up a lot,” Clark said. “You’re not marrying yourself to any technology. Here’s the frame, and on this frame you can do anything to put on new technology.”

The team received a $7,000 stipend for its work and travel expenses.

An emergency-room gurney designed by a team of six Kansas University students includes a battery pack and oxygen generator so it need not be plugged into a wall. The students presented their self-sufficient design, which would be well-suited to treat patients of a mass-casualty attack, to government officials on May 8 in Washington, D.C.

KU students became involved in the project thanks to Frank Zilm, owner of Frank Zilm & Associates, a hospital planning and design firm in Kansas City, Mo. Zilm, a KU graduate, is a consultant with ER One, a national organization working with the Department of Homeland Security on emergency room treatment issues.

Another group of students at Texas A&M University is designing a new type of ambulance.

Zilm said he was pleased with the design presented by the KU students. He said he expected KU to continue to be involved if Congress approved more funding for the project.

“I think they did an excellent job in responding to the problems the ER One institute was looking at,” Zilm said. “We don’t know yet (about funding) at this point. We’re talking with manufacturers if they’d be interested in continuing with the studies.”

Dr. Scott Richardson, an emergency room physician at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, said he welcomed the idea of a new gurney. The current ones are cumbersome, he said, and cords plugged into walls can get in the way of patient care.

“Everything can be improved upon,” he said. “A self-contained gurney would be great. Having the monitor on the gurney would be a huge benefit.”

But he said there were higher-priority items that emergency room doctors could use, such as more cots for treating patients in mass-casualty events and better detoxifying equipment.

“It sounds like a cool gurney, but I’m not sure where the idea came from,” he said. “They’ll spend I don’t know how much on a robo-gurney when what we need is a bunch of bandages and cots.”