Depending on the location, the victim of a stabbing doesn't have long without proper first aid to stop blood loss, but if Joseph Bentley's new invention is on the scene it could significantly reduce that possibility.

The device is known as the rapid emergency actuated tamponade, or REACT, and it borrows the long-utilized but hardly perfect function of gauze to apply pressure to a wound site to stop blood loss. Once blood clots stop the bleeding, the removal or disturbance of the gauze can reopen both the wound, and the problem.

In contrast, REACT inflates a silicon balloon-like sleeve known as a tamponade, which applies similar pressure and allows the blood to clot. Once the balloon needs to be removed, it's deflated slowly and gently, allowing the clots to remain intact.