Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences

A syringe filled with expanding sponges that can close gunshot wounds in seconds will soon be used by ambulance crews in the US.

First responders will start using the syringe to plug bullet holes after it was officially approved by the Federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for public use.

The XSTAT 30 syringe works by "injecting a group of small, rapidly-expanding sponges into a wound cavity" and stops those with wounds from bleeding out. Once the 92 sponges are in the wound they swell, stopping the bleeding 20 seconds after contact, according to Revolutionary Medical Technologies, the company behind the product.

Originally developed for military use the syringe is intended to help control "life threatening" bleeding from wounds where a tourniquet a compressing and constricting device can't be used.

The FDA said the device could be used for gunshot wounds to the "groin or armpit".

"XSTAT 30 is cleared for use in patients at high risk for immediate, life-threatening, and severe hemorrhagic shock and non-compressible junctional wounds, when definitive care at an emergency care facility cannot be achieved within minutes," a statement from the FDA read.

The device can't be used on parts of the chest, abdomen, pelvis or tissue above the collarbone, the FDA added.

The syringe's ability to stop bleeding in patients may be welcomed in the US, where 353 mass shootings have taken place in 2015. According to The Guardian there have been 1,052 mass shootings in the last 1,066 days.

It's hoped the syringe will be able to help those who are the first to respond to an incident and provide short-term respite while more medical treatment is sought.

The syringe is described as a "temporary device" that can be used for four hours until a patient can receive surgical treatment, the company behind the product said. It was first shipped to the US military in April 2015.

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