NEW ORLEANS(WGNO)– Jesuit High School of New Orleans is the first and only prep school in the United States to deploy a high-tech Germ-Zapping Robot™ to wage environmental war by destroying bacteria and potentially deadly pathogens typically found lurking inside gymnasiums, athletic locker rooms, weight training areas, shower and bathroom facilities, and even personal sports equipment.
The germ-busting robot represents a generous gift from Blue Jay alumnus Joseph Authement of the Class of 1997. A resident of Mandeville, Authement is senior vice president of sales for Xenex Disinfection Services.
The robots are most commonly used in hospitals and nursing homes. “This is a real issue in the United States both in the hospital environment where about 200 people per day across the U.S are dying because of hospital acquired infections, and those infections are starting to find themselves in weight rooms like this and locker rooms of professional sports teams and then in nursing homes and other areas of our daily activities so I wanted to make sure that I was giving something back to this school to protect the students here at Jesuit” said Authement.
The students have named the robot Morty, a twist on the Latin term “mors” which means death–to germs of course. Morty’s mission is to decontaminate the most common places for germs. It admits a UVC light that is thousands of times more intense than sunlight. That UVC light is not able to penetrate our atmosphere so the super bugs that we are exposed to have not yet been able to build up an immunity to it.
“In 5 minutes time it will kill Ebola it will kill anthrax, C Difficile, MRSA, and any of the other super bugs that are causing infections right now in both the hospital environment and environments like this” explained Authement.
“It’s cool to see the robotics aspect, seeing where this could possibly lead me in the future and then on the athletic part, it’s cool to know that in the weight room you’re safe, there’s no stress that I might get staph or anything, it’s a nice little security feature” said student Todd Crabtree, who is a member of the Jesuit robotics club and the Blue Jays baseball team.
A Xenex robot costs about$100,000 to purchase and will be used in rooms of high traffic in the school.