Posted on 11/27/2014 12:43:41 PM PST by naturalman1975
US Special Forces soldiers injured on the battlefield could soon be put into 'hibernation' until they can be moved to safety, it has been revealed.
The US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) is providing $550,000 to fund a radical new drug being developed by Australian scientists.
It can put people into a 'survival window' low enough to reduce blood loss, but high enough to prevent brain injury.
Experts say the drug therapy they're working on may be the first big advance in treating battlefield casualties since the Vietnam War.
Professor Geoffrey Dobson and Research Associate Hayley Letson from James Cook University's Division of Tropical Health and Medicine have spend seven years developing the technique.
The treatment targets what battlefield surgeons call the 'platinum ten minutes' after a soldier is wounded .
He said the better known 'golden hour' is a meaningless concept in far-forward military environments.
'During the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, more than 87 percent of all deaths among allied soldiers occurred in the first 30 minutes, before they could get to a hospital.
'Nearly a quarter of these, almost a thousand people, were classified as having potentially survivable wounds. Time was the killer,' he said.
.....
Dr Dobson said SOCOM became involved because of the progress the JCU team had made over seven years developing the process.
'SOCOM chooses projects that can be rapidly advanced into the field.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I watched “2001 A Space Odyssey” this morning.
That will certainly make you think twice about hibernation ;)
PS: That movie really stands the test of time.
what we need now is a way to put a President Into Hibernation...for say ..about two years!
Universal Soldier comes to mind.
Wonder if they are talking about plain old phenobarbital here.
Have they been using Joe Biden as a test subject?That would explain a lot.
My daughter (who is involved in the research in a junior role) says it uses adenosine and lidocaine, but it’s more about precisions in procedure than just the drugs.
I paid for this education. I wish I understood more of it. :)
Adenosine is weird, it can convert an arrhythmic heart but may first stop the heart altogether for a few seconds when it does.
BAHAHAAAAABAHA, still cannot stand his voice are face.
COMA seems more accurate.
“Experts say the drug therapy they’re working on may be the first big advance in treating battlefield casualties since the Vietnam War.”
This is absolutely not true. There have been dozens or hundreds of gigantic leaps in medical technology directly useful for battlefield casualties.
I have never been able to stay conscious long enough to form an opinion on him, his droning voice puts me out like a light.
What they are talking about is treatments that can be used on the battlefield itself within less than ten minutes to extend the life of the person being wounded by a combat medic or other soldier.
Survivability rates once the wounded person reaches the hospital have improved dramatically since Vietnam. As has the speed of evacuation which means they generally get there in a shorter time.
But the number who survive the initial wound for a period of a few minutes (the most severely wounded who were not actually killed instantly) and then die before they reach medical care hasn’t changed anywhere near as much.
Where this drug treatment shows promise is that in a lot of case it extends the ‘critical period’ for the most seriously wounded from 5-10 minutes between wounding and death to more like an hour - and sometimes longer. It increases the chance they will still be alive by the time they reach the care of a surgical team - and if they get there in time, their odds of survival are pretty good.
Some of us served our turns as guinea pigs and super troopers. Others get to do it now. :-)
Then the platinum 10 minutes,
What's next, the GD keep your head down diamond minute?
That’s how it goes. As treatments get better, more and more injuries become survivable. Because the most devastating injuries kill fastest, that also means the time in which you have to act gets smaller.
I’m passing on what my daughter has told me when I’ve asked her about this - she’s working in medical research, including some involvement on the edges of this particular piece of research.
One can evac quicker and quicker, and if the wound is a bleed out or shock, yeah, can change the stats by stopping the bleeding, and treating for shock sooner. Does less for the head shots and vaporized ones.
We have the capability to descend on the enemy with a curtain of steel and lead a mile wide and a mile deep, that can be maintained across the entire frontier.
That is how survivability is enhanced, and casualties are minimized.
No disrespect to the medicos. Witnessed their efforts first hand.Without them, many friends would not have survived.
Wouldn’t make a difference.
The Obama administration is on auto-pilot anyway.
To the Left; March!
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