devices used in vascular surgery the er in the product name stands for the last names of the two inventors eliason and rasmussenthe defense department and the university of michigan hold the patent dr rasmussen said and he makes no money from itpeople with pelvic injuries like ms williams and ms hall are ideal candidates for reboa surgeons say those injuries are a notorious cause of lifethreatening hemorrhage when the body is hit hard enough to break the pelvis the impact almost always shears or severs hundreds of tiny veins and arteries that bleed profusely bleeding in the pelvis can be difficult or impossible to stop because the area often cannot be compressed enoughabdominal bleeding can also be stopped with the device if it is pushed higher into the aortathe balloon almost certainly saved ms williamss life dr bukur said with her circulation cut off he was able to pack the damaged area with gauze to prevent more bleeding after the balloon was deflated another surgeon removed ms williamss spleen which had ruptured and was also bleeding copiouslyimagecreditsam hodgson for the new york timesnearly a month later ms williams and her mother elaine were stunned to learn that a plastic tube with a balloon on it had played a crucial role in saving her she is recovering in one of the citys rehabilitation hospitals it will be months before she can walk again she has no memory of being hit by the car that killed another person and injured 22 on may 18im kind of happy i dont remember she said i can focus on getting better and taking it one day at a timeshe missed her high school prom but was planning to watch her classmates graduate remotelymr spencer said that the device had been used more than 1000 times and that 126 of those patients were known to have survivedwere conservative on claiming it saved someone he saidthe device may prevent accident victims from bleeding to death but they may have head injuries or organ damage that turn out to be fatalreboa is not the second coming of jesus christ mr spencer said it is not going to miraculously save someone on a motorcycle who hit a car going 80 miles an hour but it gives the surgeons a chance where maybe there wasnt a chance beforeone case at the university of california davis medical center involved a pregnant woman at high risk of bleeding to death from a placental abnormality a jehovahs witness she could not accept blood transfusions using the balloon helped doctors perform a cesarean section that saved both her and the babyat a reboa training course last week for about 50 trauma surgeons from the new york region dr teperman introduced a surprise guest nanetta hall injured in february she was just about to be released from a rehabilitation hospital with a walker she made her way slowly to the front of the auditorium to address the doctors without the reboa procedure she said