LEXINGTON, Ky. — The Kentucky Blood Center is partnering with first responders in central Kentucky to bring vital blood right to trauma patients before they arrive at hospitals.

What You Need To Know

  • The Kentucky Blood Center is working with four different EMS departments to transport blood to the sites of emergencies

  • The prehospital blood partnership program has been reviewed and approved by the Kentucky Board of EMS

  • The partnership will officially start on Sundey, June 1

University of Kentucky trauma medical director, Dr. Andrew Bernard, said inside UK’s trauma center and others, O-negative blood is the most commonly used for emergencies. 

“Because many of these patients, whether they be in the field or our trauma center, we don’t yet know their blood type. So we have to give them a compatible blood type,” Dr. Bernard said. 

Bernard said besides factors such as blood type and components like red and white blood cells and plasma, time is always crucial. 

When trauma emergencies occur, EMS in Jessamine, Georgetown, Madison County and Lexington will now have 500 milliliters of blood to support victims before they even arrive at hospitals. 

“So you might ask yourself, how can I be so confident that we’re going to save lives when we don’t even know when or who that life that we’re going to save? The reason I’m so confident is that we know for sure what the number one killer of young Kentuckians is. And young lives, Lexingtonians, and that’s an injury,” Bernard said. 

Leaders behind the program said this is the first regionally based prehospital blood partnership in Kentucky. First responders joined leaders to introduce the program to the community. 

Floyd Miracle is the assistant chief with the Jessamine County EMS. 

Assistant Chief Floyd Miracle, Jessamine County EMS, said out of 21,000 EMS agencies in the country, less than 1% are delivering blood prehospital. Miracle said he is proud that their teams can help lead the way. 

“One of the most important things that we can do, is to arm them with the tools that they need and without them, without the people on the front lines willing to put in the extra training and the extra time to learn how to store and administer blood, this would not be possible,” Miracle said. 

The program has been reviewed and approved by the Kentucky Board of EMS, Miracle said. 

The prehospital blood partnership will officially start on June 1.

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