FORT SAM HOUSTON, Texas – Walking on a broken leg is hard enough; now, imagine walking on a broken leg on a battlefield. It’s a problem that currently requires four soldiers to carry the injured soldier off the battlefield on a stretcher.
In hopes of making major medical advancements, the Center for the Intrepid at Fort Sam Houston has engineers who have been working on a solution for nearly four years.
Biomedical engineer Brett Johnson and senior scientist Lee Childers have been working on the Intrepid Battlefield Exoskeleton and Field Improvised Exoskeleton.
“This will stabilize an open tibia fracture and enable someone to move without a stretcher,” Childers said. “So, it’s kind of like a hands-free crutch.”
The goal is to get an injured soldier out of the battlefield easier and with fewer soldiers. The typical four soldiers it takes to carry a stretcher won’t be needed. “Making something that is intuitive and easy to put on is an important part,” Johnson said.
The FIX “is what can a medic scavenge in the field – materials, duct tape – and MacGyver a solution together,” Childers said.
Childers mentioned that MRE boxes can be used as origami to be built into a structure that a person can stand and walk on.
“We can put instructions on how to build one in students’ hands and combat medic students’ hands,” Childers said.
The need for new equipment like this comes from studying previous conflicts.
“We have been really focused on applying techniques and device design that we learned during the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts to prolong field care,” Childers said. “In future conflict, we may not have the ability to evacuate our soldiers as we have in the past, and they may need to self-evacuate.”
It could still be a few years before the IBEX is released into the market and mass-produced, but Childers is looking forward to it.
“I have a lot of confidence that we could really help bring people home, Childers said.