Seattle Fire began in late 2019 giving whole blood transfusions to trauma patients before they get to the hospital, becoming one of the first fire and EMS agencies in the nation to do so. Several pints of O+ whole blood are carried in coolers by Seattle Fire’s medical services officer when called to a scene involving a hemorrhaging patient. Whole blood appears to help the body’s own clotting factors increase, which can slow blood loss and decrease the amount of blood needed once at the hospital. To date, Seattle Fire paramedics have given whole blood to 52 patients before they arrived at a hospital.

The practice of giving whole blood transfusions has been done for years in the theater of war, where carrying the different components of blood is challenging at best. Military studies of the practice have shown that doing so provides the best chance of a trauma patient’s survival. Adapting this battlefield practice to the civilian setting could be a game-changing move for patient survival.