Modified syringe seals gunshot wound in 15 seconds

[Judi Lynn]

Modified syringe seals gunshot wound in 15 seconds
By James Vincent – 05 February 2014

Dealing with gunshots wounds on the battlefield is a brutal process. The only way to stop the bleeding is to stuff the wound with gauze, sometimes as deep as five inches into the body - and even then the treatment can fail, meaning the gauze has to be removed and new material put in.

Using this almost medieval process it's no surprise that haemorrhaging is still the leading cause of death for soldiers in the field.

Now a company named RevMedx has designed a device that they claim can stop a wound bleeding in just 15 seconds. This is the XStat, a modified syringe that injects tablet-sized sponges directly into the wound and that was inspired by the design of emergency tire repair kits.

“That’s what we pictured as the perfect solution: something you could spray in, it would expand, and bleeding stops,” John Steinbaugh, a US Army Special Operations medic who joined RevMedx told Popular Science. “But we found that blood pressure is so high, blood would wash the foam right out.”

More:
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/health/modified-syringe-seals-gunshot-wound-in-15-seconds-29982674.html

[Victor_c3]

1. We had tampons issued to us for that reason when I was in Iraq

I was an Infantry Platoon Leader and I was walking the field after a firefight and found a dying child with a wound that entered in his upper chest and came out of his lower back. My medic just a week or so prior was issued tampons for that reason. If it wasn't for the seriousness of the situation, it would have been a funny sight to see me and my medic trying to figure out what we were doing with that tampon as we attempted to put it in the kid's gunshot exit wound with the applicator and string and everything...

I'm getting way off topic here, but I felt barbaric and awkward during that event for a variety of reasons. I still remember the date. It was Wednesday, 23 June 2004. Nearly 10 years later and it is still one of those moments that is constantly on my mind.

Anyways, sounds like a great idea. It surely couldn't be worse than tampons.

[Auntie Bush]

2. I take it they didn't come with directions which were rehearsed ahead of time.