Clotting Battlefield Wounds with Shrimp

Sci­en­tists have devel­oped a ban­dage that can clot a bul­let wound in one minute or less. The magic ingre­di­ent? Ground shrimp shells and vine­gar, a con­coc­tion that has been found to clot blood instantly. The key ingre­di­ent in the shrimp shells is called chitosan.

The ban­dages were devel­oped by Hem­Con, Inc., which devel­ops and mar­kets tech­nolo­gies to con­trol severe bleed­ing for trau­matic skin and organ injuries. Gre­gory, who co-founded Hem­Con, says chi­tosan inter­acts with our blood cells because its mol­e­cules carry a pos­i­tive charge. “The outer mem­brane of a red blood cell has a neg­a­tive charge,” he explains, “and oppo­site charges attract. The red cell is attracted to the positively-charged chi­tosan, and when it touches, it fuses and forms a blood clot.” When a clot forms, the bleed­ing stops. And unlike a reg­u­lar ban­dage, which slips off when wet, the Hem­Con ban­dage becomes adhe­sive and sticks to the wet wound site, seal­ing and sta­bi­liz­ing it.“Bleeding is the sin­gle largest cause of death on the bat­tle­field,” says Jim Hensel, Pres­i­dent and CEO of Hem­Con. “The tech­nol­ogy that exists today prior to the Hem­Con ban­dage is a com­pres­sion ban­dage and a tourni­quet, which is the same thing used in the Civil War, the Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Way, and frankly, the Tro­jan War.”

Neato bur­rito!