Outgoing Mercedes engineer honoured for CPAP breathing aid

© Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd.

Back in 2020 Mercedes’ Head of Mechanical Engineering Ben Hodgkinson led the team that produced the CPAP breathing aid to help fight COVID-19.

Ben Hodgkinson has been honoured by the Queen for his efforts in designing the CPAP [continuous positive airway pressure] device, aimed at helping people who have trouble breathing due to being infected with COVID-19.

In the early days of the pandemic Mercedes repurposed their factory to allow Hodgkinson and his team to work on the device in collaboration with University College Hospital.

After learning of this honour, Hodkinson gave his comments to the Northampton Chronicle and Echo.

“It was completely unexpected. It’s a hell of a thing,” the Briton said.

“I am proud that I did it but I also do not feel as worthy as some. What I did was work incredibly hard for about three weeks.

“There are doctors and nurses who have been working in these conditions, day and night, for months and months.

“I helped as much as I possibly could and it was something that I knew how to do. It was just my duty.


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“I’ve worked in Formula 1 for 20 years. You’re pushed hard and it’s quite stressful but you have this mental retreat that it’s only racing, it’s not life or death.

“But this was life or death. The few hours sleep I stole I felt guilty about. I just felt terrible leaving each morning.”

After the breathing aid was approved for use, Mercedes’ Brixworth factory was producing 1,000 units per day. The designs were then made available for free so that the device can be replicated wherever it is needed.

One of the organisations that used the design is NASA.

“As an engineer we always joke and say ‘it’s not rocket science’, then all of a sudden NASA download your designs and you think, maybe it is,” joked Hodkinson.

In the end he says he is happy he didn’t need his own device when he was sick with COVID-19.

“Fortunately I didn’t need one of my own devices but while I was in bed, I kept being sent videos of them being used. It was very emotional.”

Hodgkinson has recently been signed by Red Bull as the technical director of their new Red Bull Powertrains division.

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