A 20-year-old was bleeding profusely after his all-terrain vehicle crashed Friday night in Walpole, Massachusetts, but he was able to receive a transfusion in the field before he was flown by medical helicopter to a Boston trauma center, thanks to the Canton Fire Department's whole blood program.
The Walpole Fire Department responded shortly before 8 p.m. to a densely wooded area for a report of an overturned ATV, with a patient trapped and bleeding, Canton fire officials said. Firefighters removed the man, treated him and rushed him to a landing zone at a baseball field in town, where they determined that he needed whole blood in the field.
Walpole requested aid from Canton's field transfusion paramedic program, and Canton Firefighter Paramedics Douglas Connor and Daniel Pendergast responded in an intercept vehicle to the landing zone in a matter of minutes, the fire department said.
A unit of O-negative blood was administered to the patient, causing his vital signs to soon become stronger. He was even talking to medics as he was loaded onto a Boston MedFlight medical helicopter, which flew him to a Boston hospital for further treatment, according to the fire department.
Bleeding is a leading cause of death after an injury, according to the Stop the Bleed initiative, meaning the rapid availability of whole blood is a matter of life and death for many patients.
The Field Transfusion Paramedic Program is new, and the Canton Fire Department became the first agency in Massachusetts to administer a whole blood transfusion to a patient in the field on June 29 after a motor vehicle crash in Braintree. The pilot program, in collaboration with Boston Medical Center, includes participation from 25 municipalities surrounding Canton.
"Programs like this allow firefighters to administer whole blood and literally replace what was lost in the field. This allows paramedics to better stabilize patients to get them to a hospital in better condition when literally seconds count," Chief Wendell Robery said in a statement.
