Bloop

In 2015, 1.2 million people died of major bleeding during surgery complications. In many parts of the world, blood reserves are still rarely available. As a direct result, at this moment in time, 40 million people worldwide cannot undergo surgery due to the high risk of bleeding to death.

Bloop is a reusable, affordable ($10) medical instrument making it possible to instantly and safely ‘re-use’ a patient’s own leaking blood. It works by a simple siphon principle allowing a patient’s blood to flow uphill without pumps. Initially, a blood thinning medicine inside the vessel flows down the tube. This creates gravity, which makes the wound blood flow downwards. The blood is then filtered and discharged in a blood bag at a level lower than the surface of the blood filled wound. As soon as the blood bag is filled, it will be replaced with an empty one and the first unit of collected – and filtered – blood can now be given back to the patient.

The low-cost Bloop device could replace current expensive, unavailable, and/or unsafe transfusion methods and potentially save millions of lives around the world – especially in developing countries. Depending on the financial and infrastructural development of medical facilities, Bloop can be scaled up and extended to a high-end (yet low-cost by comparison) version, thus benefitting developed countries also.