Belmont’s FMS 2000 Rapid Infuser Plays a Major Role in Combat Casualty Care
in the Iraq and Afghanistan War Zones

Belmont Instrument has shipped hundreds of its FMS 2000 rapid infuser to the US military since 1999. The FMS routinely deliver large volumes of blood or replacement fluid, warmed to body temperature, at flow rates as high as 45 liters per hour, and is a mainstay of treatment for severely wounded soldiers. It is used by Combat Support Hospitals and Forward Surgical Teams in Afghanistan and Iraq to treat wounded soldiers, civilians, and even enemy combatants. It is also in use in other military facilities throughout the world.

As described in a featured article in the Los Angeles Times in February, 2006, a critically injured Army sergeant arrived at Ibn Sina Hospital in Baghdad’s Green Zone, a victim of a sniper’s bullet which had “clipped off the side wall of a vein just above the liver that returns blood from the lower body to the heart. Had he arrived at virtually any other hospital in the world, the sergeant probably would have bled to death.” The article then describes the skill, experience and expertise of the cardio-thoracic surgeon who saved the life of this severely wounded soldier. The surgeon “and other doctors were able to quickly replace the blood the sergeant had lost with a new instrument called a Belmont rapid infuser, which can inject a unit of blood into the body in 30 seconds, compared with the drip method that takes as long as 15 minutes…the sergeant ended up receiving 30 units of blood during surgery.”

The Belmont FMS was also clearly in constant use in the Operating Room shown in “Baghdad ER”, a recent HBO documentary film. The film, which was shot live at the Army’s 86th Combat Support Hospital outside of Baghdad, shows the action as it occurred. Although many of the scenes of wounded young soldiers are harrowing to watch, Belmont Instrument Corporation is proud that the Belmont FMS has played such an important role in helping heroic physicians and medics to save the lives of our soldiers in this remote setting