“Saving Blood” from the Brawn:

Emergency Medical Advances from Military Technology and Practices

Every year a huge chunk of the U.S population dies from uncontrolled bleeding ranging from cases of classes I – IV hemorrhages with traumatic hemorrhages commonly resulting from abrasions, lacerations, excoriations, incisions, puncture wounds, contusions, and gunshot wounds among others, as well as exsanguinations. Ironically, salvation from an escalating mortality rate due to bleeding is furnished and headed by the U.S Army.

Critical conditions within an environment in wartime have led the U.S. Army to call for an improvement in medical emergency management. Pressed for time, scarce of labor and resources, and the impossibility of quick blood transfusions constantly overshadowing the military like clouds of gunfire smoke, war troops needed immediate yet effective emergency technology especially for blood loss scenarios.

How the military saved blood and lives

Before the 1990s, the U.S. militia relied on the application of dried blood in their field medical services because it was more cost-effective and convenient to use than donated blood even sometimes encountering problems with oxygen transport mechanisms and hemoglobin. However, the 1990s was a breakthrough with the introduction of oxygen therapeutics. Polyheme, a hemoglobin-based blood substitute, by the Chicago Northfield Laboratory, was a project that the U.S. military undertook after the Vietnam War and is currently awaiting results of its phase 3 US trials. Other blood substitutes were also being developed by different pharmaceutical companies throughout the U.S. such as: perfluorocarbon-based blood substitute “Oxygent” being which is being manufactured by the Alliance Pharmaceutical and another hemoglobin-based product called “Hemopure” by the Biopure Corporation. The U.S. military also grants the Dendritech Corporation with a 2-year sum of $750,000 to develop another form of blood substitute called “Dendrimers” which are currently being patented.

MAT, the military’s brainchild

At 2005’s Virginia Tech shootout, Mr. Sterne was saved from a death due to an arterial bleed-out caused by a wound on his femoral artery. Fortunately, MAT arrived on time. MAT or Mechanical Advantage Tourniquet was applied by paramedics in the scene, to Mr. Sterne’s wound and in seconds, necessary compression was achieved to stop the bleeding. MAT was the progeny of the Department of Defense specially designed to battlefield and civilian injuries due to terrorist attacks. It was initially used in military emergency operations and was eventually adopted by paramedics in day to day emergency scenarios involving cases similar to the one at Virginia Tech. Since then, MAT’s IDSA Award in 2006 for Best Medical Product Design and its finalist position for the INDEX Award of 2007 as the best medical product in the world for the past 2 years, has attested to its safety, convenience, necessity, and ingenuity.

Other Military Practices that could save lives

Emergency situations call for promptness of response and effectiveness of treatment. To ensure this, the military trains its reserve troops to give medical care to victims in the battlefield through the use of M&S (Medical Modeling and Simulation) exercises. The M&S is basically a training program which involves simulated patients that are expected to perform and react as a real-life victim would in different and critical given scenarios.

Article Source: EMS - EveryMinuteSucks.com