A professor at San Diego State University has designed a ventilator that he believes could be mass-produced at low cost and used in hospitals across America to treat COVD-19 patients.

SDSU assistant Mechanical Engineering professor Kevin Wood started designing a ventilator after the government put out the urgent call for more. But his expertise is designing next-generation batteries - not ventilators.

He started in his garage and then moved to the SDSU labs - in just nine days, he had a working prototype explicitly designed for COVID-19 patients.

It allows for a constant positive pressure into the lungs while also providing breaths - the initial tests show it works.

"We could even give hospitals plans and tell them the parts they need to purchase, and they could build them themselves, or we could come up with kits or preassembled systems. It just depends who's out there willing to collaborate with us," Wood said.

He said you could build one unit for about $300. Woods bought the materials at Home Depot and a car parts supplier.

"This is a crisis, and especially as Americans, there is some of that American ingenuity and the American spirit of like trying to help out best you can and tackle the situation that arises," Wood said.

His focus now is getting it into hospitals for further testing and hopefully approved by the Food and Drug Administration.