ELKTON, Md. — Dozens of people heeded the call to donate blood in Elkton on Friday, excited over a new way to help save lives.
“I used to give blood a lot and then I kind of slowed down,” said Catherine Farrell as she left the donation site, “and now I see a lot of people that need blood and they have a new program here where the paramedics are carrying blood so I thought it would be a good thing to do.”
Beginning in December, Cecil County Emergency Medical Services has teamed with the Blood Bank of Delmarva to make blood transfusions available to trauma patients long before they reach a hospital.
Cecil County launches prehospital transfusion program
“It’s something that you will start to see right away, improvement,” said Cecil County EMS Capt. Nicole Hoffman, “It’s not something that, if it’s enough that we can give out in the field, you start to see improvement of their vital signs, their look, their color. Patients improve right in front of you. It’s really dramatic improvements.”
At any given time, the county has four of these EMS Supervisor Units and two of them will be stocked with the blood that can then respond to any given scene anywhere in the county.
The temperature-controlled, red coolers carry universal, whole blood that is Type O-Positive, which can increase a patient’s chance of survival by 60 percent.
“Seeing the big turnaround,” said Hoffman, “We used to be able to give just fluids to help somebody, but whole blood carries oxygen, it carries the blood to clot and platelets and all that so it’s huge for trauma patients to be able to improve their survival rate.”
Cecil County is the eighth jurisdiction in the state with such a program and it’s already used it in five cases---taking the blood where it’s needed the most in time to make a difference.
“It really is a make or break for anybody in traumatic injuries,” added Hoffman, “and it’s really important that everyone in Cecil County does come out and does donate blood, because we can’t manufacture blood in a lab anywhere. It has to come from a human so anyone who is donating their time, donating their blood, we like to call them the silent heroes.”
