A machine to deliver automated trauma care

The ReFit system can be seen in the foreground, as emergency clinicians and researchers check the pig it was tested on. — TNS

On four occasions last year (2023), medical helicopters flew over the city of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, the United States transporting not injured humans, but wounded pigs.

The pigs – bleeding heavily from the abdomen – were stabilised in the air by an autonomous medical intervention system developed by the University of Pittsburgh as part of a US military-funded study with the potential for “groundbreaking” advances in healthcare.