INDIANAPOLIS — Years of planning led to a life saved, and first responders are celebrating.
Indianapolis EMS created a way to safely transport blood, warm it and then transfuse it on the scene, if necessary.
It's a complex process that calls for extra training, and paramedics recently executed the plan for the first time for a person with multiple gunshot wounds.
"The patient was in severe shock," Dr. Mark Liao said. "That means that they couldn't identify a radial pulse. The patient was confused at the time and also had an elevated heart rate, met all of our criteria to need blood, and so a unit of plasma – so that's the yellow liquid that we can sometimes separate out – the unit of plasma and then a unit of red blood cells. These are all simulated here, was transfused into the patient and the patient ultimately actually got a blood pressure back after receiving those particular products."
The medical teams said the patient responded quickly and is expected to recover.
The investment in the equipment is done, but the medical team says that continued blood donations are essential to keeping the program running.