FDA Approves XStat Syringe Which Seals Gunshot Wounds in 15 Seconds..

This is pretty neat invention and of course it is for military use but you could think of it being in a paramedic kit as well for those responding to where someone has been shot too.  It’s purpose of course is to stop the bleeding and 15 seconds is pretty fast.  The syringe is full of sponges. 

The company received a grant to do some research some sort of a wound dressing.  They started with using foam and then later moved into using sponges that rapidly open and expand.  Getting the sponge into an instrument was the next step. 

The  company, RevMed also makes a few other wound care products, one in particular I thought was interesting too is the AirWrap compression bandage with an inflatable bladder to it. 

When traditional wound dressings fail for deep punctures like this fails, the XStat is the answer.  BD 

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The 2.5-ounce syringe slides deep into a injury, such a bullet track, and deposits pill-size sponges that soak up blood and rapidly expand to stem bleeding from an artery. Each sponge is coated with chitosan, a substance that clots blood and fights infection. The FDA says the sponges are safe to leave in the body for up to four hours, allowing enough time for a patient to get to an operating room. To ensure they don't get left inside a wound, X-shaped markers make each sponge visible on an x-ray image.The pocket-sized XStat, a hemorrhage-stopping invention we wrote about in February, yesterday received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a first-of-its-kind medical dressing. This means that the U.S. Army, which funded development of the sponge-filled syringe, can now purchase XStat to be carried by military medics.

XStat plugs gunshot and shrapnel wounds faster and more effectively than the standard battlefield first aid. Currently, medics treat hemorrhage by stuffing gauze as deep as five inches into an injury—a painful process that doesn't always work. Of soldiers who died between October 2001 and June 2009 of wounds that weren't immediately fatal, blood loss was the killer in an estimated 80 percent of cases.

http://www.popsci.com/article/technology/simple-invention-sealing-gunshot-wounds-gets-fda-approval?src=SOC&dom=tw