Soldiers Could Pack There Own Freeze-Dried Blood

According to the Israeli news site Haaretz.com, soldiers in
the field may carry an emergency blood supply based on
their own blood.
Israeli Defense Force Medical Corp Lieutenant Colonel Amir
Blumenfield says that a Nes Tziona-based company is working
on the product.

"The idea is to take a soldier's blood, freeze it in laboratory conditions,
take out the ice crystals leaving only the blood components. It will look l
ike freeze-dried coffee in a little bag."
If this product works, it could revolutionize trauma care on the battlefield.
At present, the most that medics can do in the field is to provide a t
ransfusion mixture consisting of water and salt (saline solution).

In laboratory tests, it appears that enough of the freeze-dried blood cells
survive to be able to carry oxygen to the rest of the body. Blood transfusions
are not available outside of organized medical centers, owing to the stringent requirements of storing blood, and making sure that properly typed blood is supplied to each soldier.

SOURCE:
LiveScience.com

I think this is probably one of the better military medical
technolgies to come out for awhile.

Just imagine though, some tired sap that's been awake 50 hours
goes to make some coffee and accidentaly grabs the blood instead
of instant coffee, that'd be a horrible way to wake-up.

Comments, Opinions?

[edit on 7/31/2006 by iori_komei]

Originally posted by iori_komei
Just imagine though, some tired sap that's been awake 50 hours
goes to make some coffee and accidentaly grabs the blood instead
of instant coffee, that'd be a horrible way to wake-up.

Obviously, you have never had army coffee, have you? Freeze dried blood would be a vast improvement.



Im glad to see this technology, though. When i was in the army, something that gave me a bit of worry was the fact that I have a rare blood type (B-) and thus, getting a blood transfusion could turn out to be a problem for me.

It will certainly improve survival rates in combat.