Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service now carries whole blood

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — The Birmingham Fire and Rescue Service is rolling out a new program that allows it to have whole blood on its trucks.

BFRS Medical Director Will Ferguson said when responding to trauma calls, they aim for what they call “the golden hour.” He said most trauma patients have about one hour to get to a trauma center but in reality, that window is much smaller. He said having whole blood on the scene can literally save a life.

“We’ve already used blood once this week since we’ve started, and I would argue that’s what probably saved that patient’s life,” Ferguson said.

The BFRS is now the third department in the country to carry whole blood.

“There are a lot of shootings, a lot of wrecks where patients could benefit from blood,” BFRS EMS Lt. Robby Allison said. “So, this is huge form Birmingham, for the citizens of Birmingham.”

Ferguson said blood, specifically whole blood, is essential to saving a person’s life.

“If you have no blood in your body, if you’re not breathing, you only have a couple minutes before your brain dies,” Ferguson said. “So access to whole blood in the field can resuscitate somebody immediately, and then we can move them to the trauma center.”

In the past, fire and rescue crews used blood components in the field. That’s plasma, platelets, red blood cells or white blood cells, and it takes about 15 to 30 minutes to administer. Whole blood is blood with all of its components in one and takes only about four minutes.

“You always think if you had the opportunity to do more,” BFRS Cpt. Kaunda Wooten said. “Now that we have whole blood, we can do more.”

Ferguson said he hopes this is another step toward taking emergency medicine care into the streets to keep patients alive.

“I think we need to grow EMS in our state as a whole,” Ferguson said. “So yes, we got to move forward, or people die.”

This unit carrying the whole blood will be housed at BFRS Station 14 near Legion Field. Ferguson said this is an area that sees a high a number of traumas. The department hopes to expand the program to other stations in the city in the future.