Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

The weekly newsletter for Fed2
by ibgames

EARTHDATE: June 19, 2016

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REAL LIFE NEWS: GUNSHOT PLUGGING DEVICE SAVES ITS FIRST LIFE

by Hazed

A while back I told you about a new invention that could save the lives of gunshot victims, by plugging their wounds with cotton wool pellets to stop the bleeding while waiting for treatment. Now it’s had its first use in the field and has saved the life of a soldier.

The syringe full of sponges, called XSTAT, was developed by RevMedX Inc, and was approved for military use in 2014. A United States forward surgical team (FST) used it to stem severe bleeding in a coalition forces soldier who had been shot in the leg. Standard techniques had failed to stop the bloodloss so the sponges were deployed, and they worked exactly as intended.

Here’s a description of how they were used, from the Journal of Emergency Medical Services:

“The femoral artery and vein were transected and damage to the femur and soft tissue left a sizable cavity in the leg. After a self-applied tourniquet stopped the bleeding, the patient was transferred to an FST for evaluation and treatment. After proximal and distal control of the vessel was achieved, several hours were spent by the team trying to control residual bleeding from the bone and accessory vessels. Throughout the course of the roughly 7-hour surgery, multiple attempts at using bone wax and cautery on the bleeding sites were unsuccessfull and the patient received multiple units of blood and plasma. Eventually, the FST team opted to use XSTAT and applied a single XSTAT device to the femoral cavity— resulting in nearly immediate hemostasis. The patient was stabilized and eventually transported to a definitive care facility.”

Excellent!

Source: http://gizmodo.com/this-bizarre-gunshot-plugging-device-just-saved-its-fir-1779606992

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