Anybody know what the storage limitations of this stuff are? I mean, can we toss it in everybody's rucksack like we do with Ringer's Lactate and then use it for a pt with traumatic blood loss or hemhorrage?
We've had a couple of guys take a lot of Ringers' and just barely make it to the hospital. That's even true in accidents -- we've had bad internal injuries on jumps, and a guy headshot on a training range. But it really would come into its own in the war. We have had guys unable to be medevaced overnight due to weather or aircraft availability. Our Australian counterparts lost a good man due to a femoral artery wound. They were able to pump his volume up but volume alone can't do it if you can't carry enough O2 to vital tissues.
(For the non-medically-aware, Ringers Lactate is a blood expander -- all it does is put some fluid volume in the system to replace lost blood and keep pressure in a survivable range, but unlike human blood, it can't carry oxygen. If fresh oxygen doesn't get to living tissue, the tissue dies -- starting with the patient's central nervous system).
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
I gave you all that I had. Maybe a call to Brooke Army Hosp from your Hospital Drs.?
There are some other advances which have taken place over the last two or three years which are helping many more troops survive.
The public knows about the armor, but there have been a whole bunch of medical advances, from point-of-injury stuff like Curlex, to new advances in emergency medicine, like a lung machine they have in Landstuhl to prevent death from lung burns.
I think (I dunno for sure) that these things started out on the civilian trauma market and then were quickly adopted by the military. The lung machine, for instance, is experimental but it is saving lives.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F