Pittsburgh EMS expands pilot program for paramedics to utilize mobile blood banks

  • Source: TribLIVE
  • Published: 05/03/2024 01:47 PM

It didn’t look good for the teenage driver. Shortly after 7:15 a.m. on a rainy Thursday in May last year, the young man — who lost control of his yellow sports car when it hydroplaned on Saw Mill Run Boulevard and he slammed the vehicle into a utility pole near the Pittsburgh/Whitehall border. He was badly injured and losing blood as first responders and Duquesne Light workers struggled to free him from what was left of his car. Then, Pittsburgh paramedics — working alongside firefighters from Pittsburgh, Whitehall and Pleasant Hills — did something no ground-based EMS unit previously had done in Pennsylvania: they connected the driver to an IV and administered two to four units of whole blood right at the scene. EMS rushed the teen to an area hospital in critical condition — and he survived.



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