Haemorrhage is second only to traumatic brain injury as a cause of death from injury the UK. Tourniquets are well known for treating blood loss from limbs, but there is no proven equivalent for patients with a non-compressible haemorrhage.

Surgeons, emergency department physicians and other trauma specialists grappling with this problem are now looking to other disciplines for new solutions.

“Non-compressible haemorrhage patients who make it alive to hospital will almost always survive, with the sophisticated surgery and resuscitation strategies available to us,” says Professor Nigel Tai, a British Army trauma surgeon who also looks after patients in London. Typically, the greatest risk to life is on the street or on the way to hospital. In conflicts, this is on the battlefield, before evacuation. “We call these deaths ‘preventable’,” says Tai.

For a fuller description of the challenge, please check this article from our friends at Ingenia.

Solutions and Sharing

Professor Nigel Tai and our team at jHub are seeking solutions and mitigations that will save lives in civilian and military environments.

If you haven’t already, please become an Amitypather to help us spread the challenge to maximise our chances of success.

And if you think you have a solution and would like to discuss it, join the discussion in our forum on WhatsApp – we’ll share the link once you’re aboard as an Amitypather.

Thank you!

Dr Stacey Webster

Emergency Medicine ST5

University Hospital Bristol