SNICE: Safety Device to Remove Snow and Ice.

ABOUT SNICE

SNICE, a safety device to remove snow and ice, was conceived by Michael Aquirre in 2010. Michael was a Transportation Maintenance II employee with the Colorado Department of Transportation. Early one winter morning, at about 1:30 AM, Michael was called in on emergency to help plow the roads during a significant snowstorm in Colorado. With only a push broom at his disposal in his assigned vehicle, Michael, a dedicated department of transportation employee, began attempting to clear the ~two feet of snow off of the hood and the windshield of the ~10ft tall vehicle using only said push broom. While Michael’s decisions that morning were not standard protocol for the DOT, he also used what was available to him to “clear” the vehicle in order to pass inspection for road readiness and get out to clear the highways for the citizens of his community.

The push broom was only four feet in length, and Michael is five feet and six inches in height, the remaining six inches needed to clear the emergency lights from the top of the truck proved to be the six-inch gap that launched this business idea. Unfortunately, as Michael stepped onto the roughly four-foot-tall tire, the only platform available to him to provide lift in order to clear the snow from the emergency beacons, he began to lean forward towards the light assembly and his feet slipped off of the tire.

At 1:30 AM, Michael found himself alive, luckily, but laying on the ground in a few feet of snow, in the dark, and gasping for every breath to stay alive. During these tense minutes, Michael, a father, could not help but think about how close he was to paralysis, or worse, death!!

These minutes were the catalyst for the SNICE Safety Device, and we invite you to join us on our mission to deploy this device for the safety and security of the hard-working humans in this world.