29-04-2025
Monongalia EMS launching Whole Blood Program throughout the county
WESTOVER, (WBOY) — According to Robby May, Monongalia EMS's Director of Clinical Services, fewer than 100 EMS agencies or fire departments in the country use whole blood. On Monday, in a move to be 'on the cutting-edge,' Mon EMS announced the launch of its inaugural whole blood program.
Monongalia County is just the third county in West Virginia to roll out this type of program, as well as the most populous county in the state so far. May told 12 News that in many other counties, EMS agencies only certify a small number of paramedics, officers, etc. to administer whole blood, but Mon EMS has certified all 60 of its paramedics using state requirements.
May explained how a recent study analyzed data between 2020 and 2023 and revealed that there were between 1 and 1.2 million people in the United States who called for EMS that would've been eligible to receive blood. 'Less than 1% of them actually received blood because there's just not, it's not out there in many EMS agencies,' he said.
According to May, the peak time of death when someone is bleeding out is about 30 minutes. He added that this would be long before a patient actually arrived at a hospital.
'So now we're bringing that care directly out to people, even before they get to a state-of-the-art Level 1 trauma center to give them that extra time,' he stated. 'To give those physicians the time to get them into the operating room, stabilize them, etc.'
May said that this program will not just have an impact on Morgantown residents, but that residents in more rural areas like Blacksville and other outlying communities in the county that are further away from the hospital will be affected as well. 'Now we can basically bring this treatment to them that before they only would've ever gotten in the actual hospital itself,' May added.
Whole blood has all of the blood components, including red blood cells, plasma and platelets. According to May, the platelets are what actually help your blood to clot, which is especially important for someone who is hemorrhaging.
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Mon EMS will be using O-positive whole blood, which May said is what the other EMS programs that give blood use. He said that O-type blood is the universal donor, meaning that you can receive it no matter what your blood type is.
The positive identifier of the blood is its Rh factor, which determines whether it's positive or negative. May told 12 News that 82% of the population is Rh-positive, but added that it's still safe to give Rh-positive blood to somebody who is Rh-negative.
May stated that Mon EMS has also collected data from other EMS agencies and hospitals that show O-positive blood is completely safe, adding that the chance of a transfusion reaction is less than one in 40,000. The data that May is specifically familiar with from the state of Maryland states that they've given over 300 units of blood with no transfusion reactions.
Mon EMS has been working to bring this program to Monongalia County for the past couple of years, according to May. He added that things actually started coming to fruition over the previous year. Last year, Mon EMS was able to purchase the necessary equipment for the whole blood program through funds from a levy that Monongalia County taxpayers voted on, in addition to their budget and contributions from local hospitals.
'Beginning in January of this year, we started the final process of getting that policy put together,' said May. 'Then in March, we started training all of our paramedics.'
According to May, it's incredibly rare from the time of a 911 call for a patient to get to a hospital in less than 30 minutes, even in more urban areas like Morgantown. He stated that between the time it takes for paramedics to arrive, EMTs to enter your home and assess you, and to actually travel to the hospital, while also factoring in traffic, it's highly unlikely to get to a hospital within that peak window of death.
Whether a patient is bleeding out from a medical reason, such as a gastrointestinal bleeding, or from some sort of trauma where they're bleeding out much quicker, the use of whole blood is very important in order to buy that patient more time.
'In the field, we can't go inside and surgically repair what's causing that bleeding to occur,' said May. 'So this is kind of buying you additional time to get you to the [emergency department], where those physicians can assess you immediately and then into the operating suite where they can actually repair what's happening.'
The whole blood program will officially launch in Monongalia County on Thursday, May 1. Following the press event on Monday, paramedics with Mon EMS demonstrated the blood administration process, using the same equipment that will be used on patients.
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