South Texas College of Law Houston Student Uses 3D Printer To Create Ear Guards for Health Care Workers

Congratulations to Jessica Livsey, my research assistant, for her tireless work

I am very proud of Jessica Livsey, my former student and research assistant. Jessica has used their talents with 3D Printers to create ear guards. These plastic pieces can be worn across the back of your head as an anchor for face masks. Jessica, along with her fiance and two children, have donated more than 1,400 ear guards to healthcare workers across the country.

The Texas Lawyer detailed her amazing work:

Staying home like all of us, one Houston law student has found a way to make health care workers more comfortable while teaching her children about serving others.

Jessica Livsey, a rising third-year law student at South Texas College of Law Houston, has been working with her fiance and two children, who are 6 and 8 years old, to use the family's 3D printers to manufacture "ear guards" for health care workers.

The doctors and nurses who are treating COVID-19 patients suffer from ear pain from the elastic straps on their face masks. An ear guard goes on the back of the head and holds the elastic straps away from the ears.

"I've had people say, 'My husband is coming home with his ears bleeding,' " said Livsey, who works as a litigation intern in the Harris County Attorney's Office. " We don't know how to heal people, but we can do this."

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So far, Livsey's family has manufactured about 1,400 ear guards and donated them for free to health care workers, police, grocery workers and other types of front-line personnel in Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, California and other states. They also decided to purchase a fourth 3D printer for $300 to keep up with the demand.

Livsey said that she wakes up every four hours over night to start another batch of ear guards. The printers are working nonstop for now, and Livsey said she will only quit when the orders stop coming.

South Texas also issued a press release. Jessica told me, "My kids think they are 'Facebook famous' currently." They are!

Jessica is not a stranger to this blog. In March, I posted her essay about why law schools should maintain grades during the epidemic. She gave me permission to attribute her work here. I am very proud of Jessica for all that she has done for South Texas and our community.

Update: Houston Public Media created a video about Jessie's work: