Space travel is often touted as the pinnacle of human progress, with the current missions to Mars an example thereof [1]. For those living in Lower-and-Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), this is but a pipe-dream. They face the daily mission of survival, with much less resources than higher-income countries. The level of trauma is also well known to be higher in these countries, with the additional burden of a restricted access to safe and affordable blood transfusion [2].

Blood safety is a priority for the various providers of blood products and the risk of infectious transmission is a reality, however much reduced in many parts of the world due to modern technology [3]. On top of these challenges are the high rates of retroviral disease and malaria in many parts of the world, where many of the LMICs are located [3]. All of these factors combined with poor fiscal resources and the need to pay for healthcare in LMICs leads to needless death from hemorrhage. For this reason, it is important for LMICs to establish cost-effective, yet efficient solutions to the shortage of blood products. One such solution is the reinfusion of the patient’s own blood recovered during emergency department resuscitation or during surgery [4, 5]. Emergency autotransfusion is nothing novel, having been first described in the 1800′s [4].