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Sources

Sources & citations

Where each fact on this site comes from.

Press clippings

  1. Newsweek, October 26, 1987: “Emergency Exit” — scan and transcript · PDF. Permanent file address: /images/1987-10-26-NewsweekMagazine-Article-ExitTraveler.pdf.
  2. The Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.), November 20, 1987: “Device Helps Safe Escape From A Fire: ‘Exit Traveler’ Unveiled At Montco Fire Academy” — scan and transcript · PDF. Permanent file address: /images/1987-11-20 MorningCall-Allentow PA-ArticleDeviceHelpsSafeEscapeFire.pdf.
  3. Manila Standard (Philippines), August 4, 1988: “Safe escape from high-rise” — scan and transcript · PDF. Permanent file address: /images/1988-08-04-ManilaStandard-ExitTraveler.pdf.
  4. Manila Standard (Philippines), November 27, 1988: “Save a life — yours” — scan and transcript · PDF. Permanent file address: /images/1988-11-27-ManilaStandard-NewspaperExit Traveler.pdf.
  5. The Lake Orion Review (Lake Orion, Mich.), March 7, 1990: “Issue of March 7, 1990 (Vol. 108, No. 25)” — scan and transcript · PDF. Permanent file address: /images/1990-03-07-newsletter.pdf.
  6. Chicago Tribune, May 27, 1990: “Playing It Safe” — scan and transcript · PDF. Permanent file address: /images/1990-05-27-Chicago Tribune -Playing It Safe.pdf.
  7. Popular Science, August 1990: “Escape route” — scan and transcript · PDF. Permanent file address: /images/1990-08-01-PopularScienceMagazine.pdf.

Other sources

  1. exittraveler.com, the original Exit Traveler website (its text is quoted on the History page) and the live home page as of October 27, 2026: text including “a fireproof steel tape that has a reach of over 12 stories.”
  2. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine: captures of exittraveler.com from July 2018 to October 2025 (for example the capture of February 26, 2021).
  3. Rick Denzien, “Exit Traveler,” rickdenzien.com: first-person account of demonstrations and television appearances, reproduced with his permission. Related page: Inventions, which names the partner Win VanBasten.
  4. YouTube, “Exit Traveler Information Video,” Bah-fo Recording Studio: youtube.com/watch?v=iWd8wpJja6E. Upload date and producer are not stated on the page.
  5. Wikipedia, “Rick Denzien” (user-edited): cites the Newsweek and Morning Call items, linked to copies on this site’s original address.
  6. Rick Denzien, personal communication, October 27, 2026: the development of the device by a team; that no units are available; that R.A.W. means Rick And Win and the company was later called Rescue Associates Worldwide; that Win VanBasten is the partner’s name; that the Exit Traveler was demonstrated hundreds of times, many of them live on television; that R.A.W. brought an Exit Traveler prototype to the United States for U.S. manufacturing and that distribution was only a step toward acquiring and further developing the product; permission to publish the full press scans, photographs and his account; and that the photographs are mostly images of Rick Denzien; and that the 12-story hotel demonstration in India was in Delhi; and (X-ray view on The Device) that a working unit held 136 metres of stainless steel HD tape coiled in the cassette, and that the reinforced eyelet at the top, under the red tab, is for hooking up the supplied carabiner and stainless steel cable.
  7. Background reading for the High-rise fires and rescue page: Vincent Dunn, Fire Engineering, December 1995 (reprinted on iklimnet.com), and Precision Lift, Inc.’s Heli-Basket page (Internet Archive copy). Both were supplied by Rick Denzien on October 27, 2026. Full citations are on that page.
  8. Rick Denzien, files supplied October 27, 2026: four further 1987 promotional photographs and a photo of a clear demonstration model (see Gallery and The Device).

Further archival finds (October 2026)

  • Architecture (Journal of the American Institute of Architects), November 1987, pp. 133–134, “Automatic Exit Device” — scan; Internet Archive.
  • Business Week, September 18, 1989, p. 123, “Developments to Watch” (ed. Naomi Freundlich) — scan; Internet Archive.
  • American Survival Guide, December 1989 (vol. 11, no. 12), p. 14, “New Products” — scan; Internet Archive.
  • The Foreign Service Journal, R.A.W. advertisement, March 1990 p. 2, April 1990 p. 2, May 1990 p. 7 — scan; AFSA.
  • Fire Engineering, August 1, 1987, “Equipment Digest” — fireengineering.com.
  • Thomas Register of American Manufacturers, 1990; National Review classified ad (date not identified); Marketing Masters (1990); David Alan Wacker, The Complete Guide to Home Security (1990); Malcolm Abrams and Harriet Bernstein, More Future Stuff (1991) — snippets and details on More finds.
  • Seven Dutch newspaper reports, May–July 1985, and De Telegraaf, April 1, 1985, via Delpher (KB, National Library of the Netherlands) — clippings, excerpts and translations.
  • U.S. Patent 4,588,046; EP 0 153 509 B1; NL 8400368 A and family; USPTO assignment and maintenance-fee events as shown on Google Patents — Patents.
  • Taiwan Intellectual Property Office open data: trademark registration 00509016, “易梯及圖EXIT TRAVELER” (1990) — see More finds.

Notes on the materials

  • Photograph dates (1987) come from the original photo file names (1987-07-15). The press scans keep the dates given in the clippings or in their original file names.
  • Newspaper scans captured from Google News Archive and Google Books are shown cropped to the page; the unchanged PDFs are available to download. Telephone numbers and street addresses printed in 1988–1990 sales information are left out of the transcripts.
  • The Lake Orion Review scan is cut off at the right margin, so the passage on page 8 is not transcribed.