Race Against Time

Alec did …

Alec was an inventor … his most recent success had everyone talking. But now, he faced a challenge unlike any other.

The White House had called. The President of the United States lay dying having been shot twice by an assassin. The doctors had found and removed one bullet but could not locate the other. The metal from the missing bullet was slowly killing him. Could Alec somehow help find the bullet inside the President’s body?

With time being short, Alec set about developing a device to help search for the bullet. After a frantic effort, the crude device he and his team created seemed to work perfectly everywhere they tested it… except when they tried it on the President. They tried again and again but it would just not work at the White House.

Eighty days after being shot and despite the best efforts of his physicians and Alec, President James Garfield died.

Eventually it became clear that the device did not work because of the new fangled frame and springs of the bed on which the President lay dying.

Today Alec’s crude invention to help find an assassin’s bullet is used all over the world everyday … and you pass through one everytime you take a flight. The Metal Detector. Initially developed by a man who had found his true calling as an inventor … Alexander Graham Bell.

The Metal Detector is a great idea because necessity often drives great invention.