Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Clot
John York
Research Plan
9/6/16
2
Clot
One of the main causes of battlefield deaths is bleeding out. This is not a military specific
problem as a law enforcement officer may also suffer from a similar problem. Bleeding out
occurs when a soldier is hit and there are not proper conditions that would allow for the wound to
be treated. This can be a lack of other people around who can provide first aid, or it can be a
combat situation that would not allow medical treatment to be dealt soon enough. Many
battlefield wounds would be treatable and deaths would be avoidable if medical aid could be
applied and so fewer soldiers would die in combat if these wounds could be treated.
Coagulants could be the answer to this. Coagulants are medicines that speed up the
clotting process in blood, this process is explained more in depth by Encyclopedia Britannica
(2016). In short the clotting process is the process that your body uses to naturally stop bleeding .
If a coagulant is properly applied to a wound it stops the bleeding relatively quickly. Coagulants
are already applied in many battlefield situations but they could potentially be used more
efficiently. If a coagulant delivery system was in a ballistic vest so that chest wounds would have
it automatically applied and therefore help prevent a fatal loss of blood. This is difficult even
with an application of coagulants however because the human body only has around 5 liters of
blood and according to Vascular Concepts (n.d.) the heart can pump up to 30 liters of blood per Commented [1]: insert "(n.d.)" to finish out your in-text
citation
minute which means if severed wrong you can bleed out in less than 30 seconds however this is Commented [2]: Add a note on the bright side (lots of
wounds leave you more time)--Give us some hope that
your project will help in many cases
very rare and many wounds take significantly more time.
Commented [3]: Great fact!
Coagulants are currently used in the battlefield, the use of them is not a new concept. The
way they are administered is vastly different however from how I am proposing, as shown in the
paper by Bond where he reviews medical techniques. Often they are applied directly by a medic Commented [4]: John, click on the star-shaped
Explore icon at the lower right here--there are two
articles you read!
3
and then pressure is applied to the wound for approximately 5 minutes. This can be problematic
however because often by the time you can safely start giving medical attention to a wound the
patient has already lost a fair amount of blood. A direct application of a coagulant immediately
into a wound would not necessarily solve the whole problem set associated with a bullet wound
but slowing the bleeding of a bullet wound would certainly buy time for anyone hit by slowing if
problematic solution. It can come with several problems such as, implementing it into a vest,
getting past all the patents of all the current vests, and many more compatibility related
problems. Since all of these concerns are entirely legitimate the best way to properly demonstrate
a system such as a coagulant delivery system is in all probability to create an entire ballistic vest.
A coagulant used would have to be a powder because of the way that liquid and gel
coagulants are stored, as shown in the article by Vara (2013). It would be expensive and
impractical for a battlefield use because it is needed to be so precise. The storage of liquid
coagulants wouldn't be able to live up to the industry standards set by the current vest as shown
in the article by KDH defense systems because liquid coagulants need to be stored at very
dependent temperatures, some need to be frozen, some need to be kept at room temperature, but
the vest needs to deal with adverse if not extreme weather conditions.
The exact powder that is going to be used in this project is Celox which is the same
science shown by Hoggarth and Allen (2016). Celox is not exactly a coagulant but it works very
similarly. Instead of starting the process just as a catalyst Celox also makes itself into a barrier
therefore giving the blood another barrier to keep it in and help give the blood more time to clot.
4
According to this company only 15 grams of the Celox granules is needed for a moderate or
Design Goal
To build a bag out of stretchy nylon filled with Celox coagulant that deploys into any
wound the bag covers, this implies that at least 15 grams of coagulant will be applied to wounds.
6
Materials
- Coagulant- Celox
- Coagulant similar material that can be used to test how the coagulant will react more
cheaply- sugar
- Skintight shirt
- Extra Fabric
- Ziploc Bags
- BB Pellets
- BB Gun
-
7
Methods
The first procedure will be to find a cheap material similar to the coagulant in order to
make this a more cost effective test. Then the material will be put into bags. The bags will be
strapped to a target and be shot repeatedly with a BB Gun to see how they react to establish a
baseline. The bag will be weighed before and after to test how much of the powder went into the
Safety: I will use the rules established by the article on gun safety by the NRA (Education
and Training, n.d.). I will also abide by any additional rules established at the range that I use. To
- Know where you are shooting: the range, what's beyond, making sure no one is
down range
Schematics
References
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1876965/
How Celox Blood Clotting Agents Work | Celox. (n.d.). Retrieved October 25, 2016, from
http://www.celoxmedical.com/usa/usaresources/resourceshow-it-works/
IOTV III – Improved Outer Tactical Vest (gen III). (n.d.). Retrieved August 30, 2016, from
http://www.kdhdefensesystems.com/product/iotv-iii-improved-outer-tactical-vest-gen-iii/
"Top 5 Ammo Types for Your Survival Guns." Survivopedia. N.p., 2015. Web. 16 Sept.
2016.
Vascular Concepts - State of the art Endovascular Devices. (n.d.). Retrieved November 03, 2016,
from http://www.vascularconcepts.com/content/pages.php?pg=patients_cardio_system
Vyas, K. S., & Saha, S. P. (2013). Comparison of hemostatic agents used in vascular surgery.
Retrieved September 01, 2016, from
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4390172/