structural:reformatting
Significant blood loss

In some locations, blood has begun to be administered pre-hospital in an effort to reduce preventable deaths from significant blood loss. Earlier analyses suggested that in the US, up to 31,000 patients per year bleed to death that otherwise could have survived if pre-hospital transfusions were widely available. For example, when a mother experiences severe blood loss during pregnancy, ambulances are able to arrive with blood stored in portable, FDA listed blood refrigerators, similar to those found in blood banks. Once the infusion is given on scene, the patient and the ambulance have more time to get to a hospital for surgery and additional infusions if needed. This could be critical in rural areas or sprawling cities where patients can be far from a major hospital and the local emergency medical team may need to use blood infusions to keep that patient alive during transport. Larger studies pointed to improvements in 24-hour mortality with pre-hospital plasma and RBC transfusions, but no difference in 30-day or long-term mortality.