Guilford County EMS begins carrying whole blood for trauma patients

A Guilford County trauma patient can now get whole blood before reaching the emergency room, a change officials say could buy the time needed to survive the first brutal minutes after a crash, shooting or other major blood loss.

Guilford County Emergency Services began administering whole blood in the field on June 2, making the county the first large urban EMS system in North Carolina to use the approach. The program came after more than a year of planning and was launched with the Cone Health Blood Bank, a collaboration county leaders cast as a countywide medical upgrade rather than a narrow EMS change.

The stakes are stark. EMS.gov says severe bleeding is the leading cause of preventable death among trauma patients, and that every minute of delay in giving blood raises the risk of death by 11%. Federal EMS guidance says prompt prehospital blood could save an estimated 37% of severely bleeding trauma patients, and that patients who received whole blood in the field were four times more likely to survive than those who did not.

Each district supervisor truck will carry two units of whole blood, or 500 milliliters total, stored in specialized coolers to keep the blood at safe temperatures. Guilford County said its supervisor trucks were fitted for the job, and about 40 EMS personnel were trained ahead of the launch so the blood could be given only to select critical trauma patients.

County EMS leaders said the program is aimed at the most dangerous calls, when minutes matter and ambulance crews are trying to hold a patient together long enough to reach the hospital. Guilford County EMS director Jim Albright said the point is to give patients the best possible chance at survival from the moment crews arrive. Associate EMS Chief Medical Officer Hannah Muthersbaugh said the field transfusion “slows the clock” for critical patients.

The county said the rollout depended on support from Melissa Dugenske and Dr. John Patrick, along with the Cone Health Blood Bank. Officials also said the program is notable nationwide: fewer than 400 of roughly 15,000 EMS agencies carry whole blood or blood products. For Guilford County, that makes the change more than a local first. It is a rare prehospital tool now headed to some of the county’s worst trauma scenes, where blood in the truck can mean the difference between reaching the ER and never making it there.