NEW ORLEANS — Community members are looking for ways to help those serving on the front lines during the coronavirus outbreak.
While many have made food or masks, staff at one New Orleans high school have come up with a unique way to make health workers more comfortable while they continue to care for COVID-19 patients.
Staff at Brother Martin High School are making special attachments for medical masks that make wearing the equipment much more comfortable on first responders' ears.
The masks were irritating their ears from constantly wearing them.
Teachers at Brother Martin were contacted by first responders to make the attachments, called "mask extenders." They're being produced using special 3-D printers at the high school.
So far, Brother Martin has donated about 70 to East Jefferson Hospital and another 80 to other area hospitals.
"We're happy to help when we can," said science teacher David Jouandot II, Ph.D. "We're very blessed at Brother Martin as a science department to be very well stacked with equipment... 3-D printing is a very big push toward the future of technology."
The school is now working to fill requests for another hundred extenders to go to East Jefferson Hospital, Children's Hospital and Chateau de Notre Dame senior care facility.
As of Monday, more than 800 people in Louisiana had died from COVID-19 and more than 2,000 patients were in the hospital for treatment.
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