Critical blood shortage puts lives at risk in Kern County

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Over the weekend, Kern Medical received a trauma that turned into an “active bleeder” situation.

They put the call out to Houchin Community Blood Bank for blood units, which was able to respond. But they say these emergencies are becoming more difficult to manage with such short supply.

According to Houchin, an active bleeder can be a trauma situation or even a routine surgery that has complications resulting in an extreme loss of blood. During these situations, they may need to respond with up to 80 units of blood and if they don’t have the specific blood type at that time they’ll have to respond with the universal donor blood type O Negative.

Unfortunately, they don’t often have that much in their supply and as a result, the blood bank has to call other local hospitals in order to gather the supply. This means they lose precious minutes while trying to save a life.

“The blood on the shelf is the blood that saves lives. In a situation that’s that time-sensitive, having the units on hand means when can the blood to the hospital faster,” explained Shane Hubbard, creative development coordinator at the Houchin Community Blood Bank.

Houchin said while they often see an increase in donations during big emergencies like natural disasters, when it comes to saving lives during a local tragedy or accident it’s the consistent donations that are used, and that’s why they need a steady income of donors.

To make an appointment to donate you can visit the Houchin Community Blood Bank website.

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