The school holidays are upon us and the kids are looking forward to having fun in a pool or splashing around in the surf. Then, disaster, one of the little cherubs goes and breaks a leg or arm.
That was the nightmare scenario confronting one of the directors of Precision Dippings Manufacturing, a UK-based specialist manufacturer of dry suit seals and bespoke rubber fittings for medical products. How to save the holiday by keeping the plaster-cast dry and allowing the child to swim? Desperate to find a solution, PDM’s expertise was put to work and a prototype of what is now our award-winning range of Bloccs’ waterproof protectors was created.
Several years on and Bloccs have become an international success story. Heather Gatland, from Pakuranga in Auckland, spotted their potential and applied to become the product’s New Zealand distributors.
Heather said: “As the proud parents of four children, we have always enjoyed an active lifestyle as a family. Inevitably, though, we’ve had our fair share of injuries and broken limbs along the way and they usually come at the most inconvenient time, just before a long-awaited holiday when we have planned lots of water activities.
“In the past, we have tried using good old Kiwi ingenuity and wrapping the cast with glad-wrap, tea-towels, plastic shopping bags and duct tape and despite spending lots of time trying to make it waterproof, we always felt nervous and apprehensive that water would get into the cast, cause damage and extend the recovery time.
“We discovered Bloccs cast covers when my daughter broke her toe playing hockey two weeks before our Christmas beach holiday. Her cast went from her toes up to just below her knee. The Bloccs cast cover made a HUGE difference to our summer holiday. It was easy for her to put on and gave us all complete peace of mind that her cast would stay dry while she was still able to enjoy swimming and kayaking at the beach and even relaxing in the spa pool.
“Once we had experienced first-hand the high quality of Bloccs’ covers and how much easier they make life with a cast, we wanted to make them more readily available to Kiwis and so we approached Bloccs to become their NZ distributor.”
Available in both adult and children’s sizes, the re-usable leg and arm covers also keep wound dressings dry and a new variant to protect PICC lines – the long, thin hollow tubes inserted above the elbow to administer medication – are being introduced next year.
For more information, visit http://www.bloccs.nz/