Purchasing Peace of Mind

More than a year ago, a Chicago executive approached John Rivers about making a parachute for office workers in high-rise buildings. It seemed like an odd request, but Rivers, who runs a small aircraft manufacturing company in Michigan, researched it anyway. “Then I made the worst decision of my life and decided not to go to market with it,” said Rivers, president and chief executive of Destiny Aircraft.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, however, Rivers has revived the idea and is selling “Executivechutes,” a $795 emergency parachute designed to be used from tall buildings. So far, Rivers has had hundreds of inquiries, including some from former tenants of the World Trade Center, staffs at Las Vegas hotels and other high-rise occupants around the country.

“It’s a last resort,” said Rivers. “But when faced with the choice of jumping with a chute or without one, I think you’d take your chances on the chute.”

The emergency parachute may be one of the more interesting antiterrorism products to gain sudden notice, but it’s certainly not the only one. Corporations and individuals alike are buying everything from infant haz-mat suits to “bomb blankets”--specially designed covers to contain shrapnel and fragments from an exploding bomb--all in hopes of increasing their chances of survival.

Other products, until last month either unknown or overlooked, are now being called up to the front lines in the personal battle against terrorism. Antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin, believed to be effective in fighting the anthrax bacteria, are being stockpiled by thousands of people after obtaining a physician’s prescription.

Also being stockpiled are basic first-aid and survival kits, portable radios and water filters. Even duct tape, already said to have 1,001 uses, now has another: sealing cracks around windows and doors in the event of a biological or chemical attack.

“We feel very vulnerable and uncertain about the future,” said Patricia Erickson, an associate professor of sociology at Canisius College in Buffalo, N.Y, who has studied the psychological impact of catastrophe. “We try to cope with uncertainty by trying to get some control over our lives.

“We are acting rationally,” she added, “in that we are trying to take precautions, given the events we have witnessed and the high probability of future events.”

The new reality for Americans has exposed the limits of the nation’s traditional do-it-yourself attitude, say cultural observers.

“There’s so little an individual can do about this and we are a culture that says an individual can do everything,” said George Peery, a political science professor at Mars Hill College in North Carolina, who has studied terrorism. “All of a sudden, we have a problem that has no good solutions, and Americans aren’t used to thinking like that.”

But don’t tell that to a wave of customers at the Counter Spy Shop, a London-based store with a branch in Beverly Hills near Rodeo Drive that mostly sells audio and video surveillance equipment. In an average month last year, the shop would normally sell five of its MK III gas masks or protection suits, which range in price from $299 to $499. In the month following the attacks, the local store, which takes orders from states west of the Mississippi River, logged 20,000 sales.

On several occasions, customers have bought complete outfits for themselves, their spouses, their children, including infants, and their extended family, according to Rafael Garcia, a store spokesman. “We had one customer say he couldn’t leave out his grandmother,” said Garcia. “So he bought her one too.”

With practice, an adult can don a protective suit and mask in under two minutes, but getting an infant or older child covered may take longer, he said. Practice and training would certainly be in order, he recommended, since a mistake, even a small one, can render the suit useless. Bioterrorism fears have rejuvenated sales in survival self-help books. One title, “Biological Terrorism: Responding to the Threat, a Personal Safety Manual,” has enjoyed new interest. Several years ago, the book, which costs $19, printed 100 copies and could barely sell that. Now the authors, who include Angelo Salvucci, director of emergency medical services in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, have ordered 5,000 more.

“We’ve had a nationwide response,” said Salvucci. “This is a single resource people can use to be prepared.”

Unlike a book, however, some of the antiterrorist products require training, particularly the Executivechute. With purchase, company officials will visit the high rise in question. They will advise workers how best to prepare, and how to evaluate potential takeoff points and landing spots. Preparation includes attaching a static line to a heavy or fixed object in the building. After the wearer jumps, the line automatically activates the chute, then disconnects.

Potential chutists will not take practice jumps, but will be encouraged to take sky-diving training.

“You are pretty much going to come straight down,” said Rivers. “You’re not going to be gliding around up there.”