Receiving a Blood Transfusion After an Accident

Blood loss that occurs in an emergency trauma situation must be replaced quickly. Unfortunately emergency squads cannot transfuse blood in the field; they can only replace fluid, and will usually begin a fast infusion of normal saline (water with the same concentration of salt as your tears).

Once a person who has suffered a great deal of blood loss arrives at a medical care facility, the trauma team will begin transfusing blood without testing the patient's blood first. This can be safely done through the use of the blood type "O+", the universal donor blood type. The goal is to replace some blood immediately while a sample of your blood is sent to the blood bank for proper 'type and cross-match.' The process of typing, crossing and preparing a unit of blood may take more than an hour, and for this reason, medical centers use the universal donor blood type. Once your blood is matched, and if you are still in need of more blood transfusions, the blood bank prepares the proper unit of blood and sends it to either the emergency department, surgery or the critical care unit. You will continue to receive units of blood until your lab work shows that you are no longer anemic.

This emergency procedure is not always the safest. A reaction to the first blood transfusion can occur and may result in breathing difficulty, skin reactions and organ shut-down. These reactions create more stress on the body. Breathing difficulty may result from fluid overload if your heart is unable to compromise for a quick fluid loss and quick fluid gain. Blood transfusions and fluid replacement have been known to push patients into congestive heart failure. Skin reactions, although less serious, usually result from an allergy to something in the transfused blood. Organ shut-down may not be readily apparent until some hours after receiving the blood transfusion.

Any accident resulting in trauma is serious enough, and sometimes the most important thing to remember is that you have come out alive. In a perfect world, all emergency squads would have the capacity to transfuse blood in the field, but this is not possible. Due to the highly regulated practice of transfusing blood and the risks involved, at this time, only fluid can be replaced. In the majority of cases, that is enough until you reach the hospital.

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