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BROOKLYN WEEKLY, MAY 10, 2020
Setting them up for success
Set builders construct life-saving intubation boxes for local hospitals
BY BEN VERDE
A team of fi lm and television
set builders are using their carpentry
skills to build life-saving
equipment for struggling hospitals.
Greenpoint set builder Bret
Lehne learned about the need for
intubation boxes — plexiglass containers
that keep doctors safe during
the most dangerous moments
of operation — when a doctor
friend contacted him a week into
the pandemic asking if he knew
anyone who could make them.
After reviewing the schematics,
Lehne came to a realization.
“This, both in material and
in complexity, is an average blueprint
that I might get in a workday,”
he said to himself. “I know
an entire industry that can build
these.”
With set workshops empty
due to social distancing guidelines,
Lehne fi rst had to search
for a space that would allow him
and a team of volunteers to work
there for free, eventually landing
on the training workshop of the
IATSE Local 52 Studio Mechanics
Union in Queens.
He then had to assemble a
team, who — due to the inherent
danger of working with any
group of people during a pandemic
— had to meet a list of requirements.
Anyone who wanted
to join had to be under 40, have
no pre-existing conditions that
would make them vulnerable to
COVID-19, and either live alone
or only with a partner.
After putting together a team
of six union fi lm crew members
who had been sitting idle due to
the shutdown of the fi lm industry,
Lehne and his cohort — made up of
Lydia Sudall, Margaret Gillespie,
Corey Lonas, James Link, and
Bobby Burgos — got to work.
With six people working at
once, the volunteers crank out
multiple boxes a day, using materials
purchased with money from
an online fundraiser.
Each box requires roughly
two hours of manpower, according
to Lehne. The dimensions are
cut out of plexiglass, holes are
drilled for doctors to insert their
arms when placing ventilator
tubes into patients, the edges are
sanded down, and the pieces are
joined by a solvent that breaks
down the plastic on a molecular
level. The boxes sit for 48 hours to
fi rm before being transported to
hospitals in need.
So far, 46 boxes have been
delivered to hospitals including
hard-hit Elmhurst Hospital,
Brooklyn Hospital, and hospitals
in New Rochelle, New Jersey and
Philadelphia. The volunteers receive
logistics and outreach help
from FEEL and ArtCubeNation,
a group of fi lm industry workers
who coordinate relief efforts, and
delivery is handled by Teamsters
drivers, leaving Lehne and his
team to focus on manufacturing.
While New York’s curve appears
to be fl attening, Lehne says
he has seen no change in demand,
and hopes to keep assembling the
life-saving gadgets for as long as
there is a need for them.
“I’m going to keep going until
one of two things happen — we
run out of money or we run out
of demand, and neither of those
things seem to be on the horizon,”
he said. “It just feels really
good to help.”
HELPING HANDS: Volunteers from the set builders group make a donation of
intubation boxes to a hospital. Photo by Bret Lehne
Enrico Ascher, MD
Natalie Marks,ELEANORA IADGAROVA,Anil Hingorani, MD
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York
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www.VascularNYC.com
www.com
ELEANORA IADGAROVA, NP
Enrico Ascher, MD
Anil MD
Natalie Marks, MD
Dear patients and doctors.
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/www.www.VascularNYC.com
/www.VascularNYC.com
