Emergency Blood Drive Saves Soldier’s Life
By Spc. Jan Critchfield, 122nd Mobile Public Affairs
Detachment BAGHDAD, Iraq – As surgeons of the 31st Combat Support Hospital concentrated on the First Cavalry Division Soldier on the operating table before them Sept. 20, midnight approached and time was running out.
Time was not measured on a clock that night; it was measured by the pints of blood that flowed onto the operating room floor as surgeons struggled to undo the destruction caused by the round of an insurgent AK-47.
“We have a Soldier who was shot in the abdomen,” Maj. Nancy Parson, 31st CSH night shift nursing supervisor said, “He lost a lot of blood, greater than 2000 cc’s.”
When the Fort Bliss, Texas-based CSH’s surgeons were done stabilizing the critically wounded Soldier, whose identity is being withheld pending notification of family members, it became apparent that more blood would be needed if the Soldier was to make it through the night.
“He required several transfusions,” Parson said. “We used the entire stockpile [of blood] here at the CSH, then we initiated a whole blood drive.”
Calls requesting volunteers were made to several other U.S. Army units near the International Zone-based CSH, a fortified area that houses key components of the new Iraqi government as well as most of the 1st Cavalry Division’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team.
The turnout was unprecedented. Humvees, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and other vehicles lined the street outside the CSH, while buses and other on-hand vehicles ferried more potential donors to the doorstep of the CSH throughout the night.
“This is the largest turnout of volunteers to donate blood that we’ve ever had,” Parson said.
“I have a list of all of the donors and everyone’s blood type that is assigned to the CSH,” Parson said. “Depending on how many units we need, I may just go and get people around the CSH and get them to donate.”
The need for blood went far beyond what the workers at the CASH could provide, however, and beyond even what the injured Soldier’s comrades could supply, who immediately volunteered to donate after arriving at the CSH with their injured friend.
"The Soldier’s unit began bringing in droves of people,” Parson said. “Then we called 3rd Brigade. They sent the word out to units around the International Zone.”
By one o’clock in the morning, nearly 150 Soldiers with the needed blood type, most pulling an all-nighter after finishing a day’s work, lined the hall outside the donation room.
“It moves me to see these Soldiers come out to help someone they don’t even know, and that [when] they feel that another Soldier is in trouble, they come willing, no questions asked,” Parson said.
“We haven’t quite needed this much blood before in the past, maybe five units or two units [of blood] at the most,” she said. “But this Soldier was a special case, and it was amazing to see how many people came out at one o’clock in the morning.”