Situations may arise during elective and emergency surgery when vascularcontrol is required but conventional vascular clamps cannot be used. Wehave found the Foley catheter useful for the control of inadvertentperforation of the heart especially in "redo" operations. We describe theuse of the Foley catheter for the control of the difficult aorta andillustrate its potential versatility in a variety of uncommon situations.As Foley catheters are present in every operating theatre we hope that ourexperience will be of benefit to other surgeons who encounter similarproblems.