Virtual Leg Injury Helps Train Combat Medics

The difficulty in training combat medics is easy to understand. The combat medic is often in the field with other soldiers and at times alone and tasked to save the lives of his friends and fellow soldiers without assistance. Training on how to treat a myriad of wounds and injuries is vitally important. A new virtual system is being used to train combat medics on how to treat leg wounds.

To help with this training researchers have created a detailed simulation of a human leg that has been injured by shrapnel. The virtual leg has lots of blood gushing out of the wound. The simulation is the first to show exactly what happens with real injuries. The simulation uses fluid dynamics and tissue mechanics to make the injuries on screen true physics based simulations.

The simulated leg was penetrated by a projectile and was created due to the prevalence of improvised explosive devices used on battlefields today. Leg injuries are some of the most common injuries sustained and treated in the field.

In the simulation are bone, muscle, skin, and a realistic vascular system that drives the blood-flow. Eventually the designers of the simulation hope to be able to run it in real time to allow trainees to administer treatments like medications and tourniquets to see how they affect the wound in real time.

SOURCE: New Scientist