CareFlight helicopters upgraded with new life-saving equipment

DAYTON — If you or a loved one suffers critical injuries on the road or on the job, a local hospital organization said they’ve been approved to provide critical at the scene care that no one else in Ohio can provide.

Leaders of Premier Health’s CareFlight medical service received clearance on Tuesday to treat patients with whole blood transfusions should they need it even before they arrive at a hospital.

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Every one of the four CareFlight helicopters are multi-million-dollar pieces of lifesaving equipment. Now, the teams will be able to carry whole blood units on the choppers and authorities believe it will save even more patients.

“We’re doing this for our patients, absolutely staying at the forefront of critical care,” Molly Nickell said. She is the Clinical Care Operations Manager for CareFlight.

It took more than two years of training, classes, and regulatory approvals before CareFlight became the first airborne medical service in Ohio approved to do this.

“Blood storage and transfusion is probably the highest regulated thing in medicine,” said Dr. Andrew Hawk. He is CareFlight’s Medical Director.

Hawk led a small team through a journey where they trained all 80 flight nurses on how to properly store and monitor the whole blood units. The blood must be kept between 1 and 6 degrees Celsius all the time, and can now be used to start a transfusion, even in the field.

“We think it is important. We don’t want to slow down transport. We want to get those seriously injured people to Miami Valley Hospital,” said Hawk.

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It’s hard to realize the intense training required to be part of this team. “They’re highly skilled, highly motivated and highly educated,” Hawk said.

The whole blood that will be used on CareFlight come courtesy of those who donate blood.

“Making sure we are good stewards – this is community-donated blood,” Nickell said.

She continued by saying transfusions will be used for patients facing severe blood lose from a car crash, an on-the-job injury, or many other types of injuries.

Having the whole blood units instead of just plasma or platelets improves any badly injured patients’ chance of survival.

“I’d say this is the gold standard for critical care. This is how critically injured patients need to be treated,” Nickell said.

The CareFlight team estimates they will perform these in the field transfusions about twice a week on average. There are only 100 teams approved for it around the world.

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