VA Tech Engineers Share Technology With U.S. Military

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Traumatic brain injury is the signature wound of the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan, but this blast injury often goes undetected.
ABC News was given an exclusive first look at how the military is trying to
change that, by measuring the power of explosions on test dummies that wear
special helmets packed with sensors.
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"We're experimenting now with helmet devices that will measure the blast, or
measure the velocity of a soldier's head as it moves ... The soldier will go
back to a base, and the information can be actually downloaded onto a
computer, so we can measure what the soldier's been exposed to," said Gen.
George Casey Jr., the one-time commanding general in Iraq, and now the
Army's chief of staff.
According to Casey, if one of these sensors makes a determination that a
soldier has, in fact, got a certain level of traumatic brain injury, the
soldier may be treated in Iraq, or returned to the United States for
treatment.
"Depending on the severity of the injury, he or she will go to the medical
facility, the doctor will screen them and make a determination from there,"
he explained.
To develop this new testing method, the U.S. military went to a very
different kind of battleground - the gridiron.
Just like blasts on the battlefield, hard hits on the football field also
cause controversy and concern.