A team of South Korean student inventors has been awarded the 2023 James Dyson Award for an air pressure-controlled IV bag that will allow rescuers in disaster situations much more flexibility when administering live-saving fluids and drugs.
Their inspiration was the Turkish-Syrian earthquakes in February 2023, which resulted in over 55,000 casualties, with a further 100,000 injured.
Throughout the evacuation process, medics had to move through harsh environments while holding up several IV packs in their hands for their patients.
The team from Hongik University in Seoul designed The Golden Capsule, a non-powered and hands-free IV device that uses elastic forces and air pressure differences rather than gravity. This means that medics in disaster zones do not have to hold up IV packs while transporting patients, and electricity is not required to control the infusion rate.
“The team has identified the limitations of existing IV injection methods, which rely on gravity and electricity, in disaster zones. Their Golden Capsule offers a much more practical, hands-free solution, using a pressurized bladder, which can be positioned anywhere, such as strapped to the patient’s side,” said Sir James Dyson, Founder and Chief Engineer at Dyson.
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“This slowly deflates, pressurizing the drip into the patient, leaving medics free to perform other life-saving work.”
“It became evident that the existing IV setups became highly impractical,” said one of the students in a video, who added she first had the idea when she herself had been hospitalized and found it really inconvenient to move around with an IV.
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The team will continue to conduct prototype improvements and user tests in collaboration with medical experts to ensure The Golden Capsule’s functionality in various emergency scenarios and hospitals. In the future, the team plans to bring their invention into mass production.
WATCH this sweet video of Sir Dyson delivering the happy news…
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