Inova Health System, Inova Trauma and Blood Donor Services, and the Northern Virginia EMS Council, in collaboration with the Fairfax County and Loudoun County Fire and Rescue Departments, have launched Field Available Component Transfusion Response (FACTR) to provide blood to entrapped trauma patients on the scene.
The agencies say FACTR is a groundbreaking program not available elsewhere in the U.S. that will provide lifesaving training and supplies to first responders, enabling a dramatic increase in the level of care they can provide in the field. The program keeps large-volume massive transfusion protocol blood products in hospital circulation to be made rapidly available to the field when needed.
The FACTR program was a direct result of the September 2017 crash on Evergreen Mills Road south of Leesburg when a passenger car was hit broadside by a food truck with failing brakes. The driver, Erin Kaplan, died at the scene, but her mother and three children, all passengers in the car, were severely entrapped. As firefighters worked to cut the metal away, paramedics determined the patients would need blood before the hours-long extraction would be complete.