When Dr. Mark Piehl lost a child in a car accident, he realized there had to be a better way to help her bleed to death, he tells thejournaalpatriot.com.
That's when he came up with the LifeFlow Rapid Infuser, a handheld device that quickly delivers blood and fluids to critically ill patients.
Now it's being used in more than 130 hospitals, EMS agencies, and air medical systems across the US.
"We are now almost daily hearing stories of trauma patients who receive blood quickly in the field and survive injuries similar to those of the patient who originally led us to create LifeFlow," Piehl says on the WakeMed Innovations website.
The idea for the device came to him after he and a group of engineering students at North Carolina State University worked on a prototype for a handheld device that would allow clinicians to rapidly deliver blood and fluids to critically ill patients.
The idea sat on a shelf for a year before a future investor encouraged Piehl to establish a company.
Together, they raised $1 million from friends and family and founded 410 Medical Innovation.
Their first employee was a biomedical engineer from a medical robotics company who was intrigued with the idea.
They set up an office in Durham and in less than 18 months developed
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