Since starting his career as a firefighter EMT in 1995, Captain Bryan Shaw has seen it all—and he was prepared, courtesy of William Shatner. "Kinda goofy, I guess, but I grew up watching Rescue 911. Something about that made me fall in love with Firefighting and EMS."

But it wasn't until his early teens that he felt the pull to this line of work. "When I was 14, I was able to ride the ambulance with Boone County EMS for a week, which just strengthened my desire." Eventually, Shaw's career path led him to the Crawfordsville Fire Department (CFD), where he's now the Captain of EMS. While Crawfordsville is small by metropolitan standards, Shaw has dealt with his share of crises in his small town. "It's literally doing nothing—until the world is falling apart around you."

During those "world is falling apart" moments, like car accidents, health crises, and gunshot wounds, one thing became clear—Crawfordsville EMS needed blood. "We've always known patients needed blood…but we just didn't have that capability," Shaw explained. Depending on the emergency location, the transport time could be up to 75 minutes away from the nearest trauma center, so administering blood on-scene could mean the difference between life and death.

"We actually had a couple of really significant runs where the patients had blood loss," recalled Shaw. "It was a conversation about whether things would have been different if we had blood."

The solution? Their ambulances needed to carry whole blood so that Paramedics could perform transfusions on the spot. So, in 2023, the CFD partnered with Versiti Blood Center and Ascension St. Vincent Hospital to devise a game plan. Thanks to the teamwork of Dr. Varun Koneru (CFD Medical Director), Dr. Eric Yazel (Indiana Medical Director), Dr. Jennifer Barker (Peyton Manning ER Medical Director), Dr. Lewis Jacobson (Adult Trauma Medical Director, Ascension St. Vincent), Dr. Stephanie Gardener (Ascension St. Vincent Medical Director), Ann Leintz (Regional VP of Transfusion Medicine Business Development), Paul Miller (CFD Deputy Chief), and Shaw himself, CFD’s ambulances were equipped with low-titer O-positive whole blood by February 2024.

You may be wondering—what is whole blood? Essentially, it contains every part of the blood. That includes red blood cells, white blood cells, plasma, and platelets. All these components carry oxygen throughout your body, fight infection, add volume, and help with clotting. So, how does the Paramedic know what the patient needs? Well, they don't exactly know, but that's not a bad thing. Because when it comes to severe blood loss, whole blood can be the best solution when the specific component the patient needs is unknown.

"We know this patient needs a blood product," Shaw explained. "But is it volume? Do they need platelets? Do they need red blood cells? Well, we can provide all of that in one shot, and the other stuff isn't going to hurt." It didn't take long for the CFD to put the whole blood to good use. In April 2024, the CFD responded to a call where someone was shot and lost a lot of blood. "They went into hemorrhagic shock," Shaw recalled. "We then infused the patient with the blood."

Thanks to that infusion, the patient was airlifted by helicopter to Indianapolis for surgery. If it weren't for the onboard whole blood, the outcome would have likely been different.

"That patient visited us at the beginning of April of this year," he said. "There's actually a picture of him on our Facebook page visiting us a year after it happened." There are several more cases, including a recent one where Captain Shaw personally infused the patient. "We had a gentleman who got pinned in some farming equipment, who was bleeding on the way to the hospital."

What amazed Captain Shaw was how he saw the patient improve right before his eyes. Shaw said, "Within five minutes, I started seeing the patient's cold, pale skin become pink, warm and dry, and he also now had a strong radial pulse. He even commented that the heater in the ambulance works really well, which meant that [his body] was feeling the warmth."

Speaking of warmth, CFD's ambulances are equipped with onboard warmers, which they use to heat the blood before it's administered. In just 11 seconds, the blood hits 100.4°F, which is the perfect temperature for trauma patients. "One of the things that we have to do is keep [patients] warm," Shaw said. "When they're losing blood, their body can't regulate the heat as well." When asked how often he anticipated they'd administer whole blood, Shaw said it's not easy to predict. "It's the same as a house fire," he said. "You may not have one for days and days and days, and then you might have two in a shift."

But don't worry—no blood is ever wasted.

"The blood's only good for a certain period," Shaw said. "[If it's not used], it goes back to the blood bank so it can be sent to another place that might need it. Our blood is 100% used." All this whole blood has to come from somewhere, which is one of the reasons CFD partners with Versiti. "We provide three blood drives a year here at the fire department for the blood banks," he said. Of course, not all the blood donated will be solely used for the CFD. But these drives raise awareness and strengthen the community.

Indeed, communities around Ohio and the Midwest have connected with the CFD, hoping to learn from their success. "We've talked to EMS agencies locally here, all the way up to the Detroit Fire Department. They come down here, look at our system, and see how it works." With so many others interested in their methods, it's clear that Captain Shaw and the CFD are doing something right. Accolades aside, it all comes down to the practical outcomes for his patients.

"We've seen an improvement in patients in hemorrhagic shock right in front of us," Shaw said. "The fact that we were able to stop and reverse that spiral is amazing."

People need people, make a difference in someone’s life by donating blood.

We must rely on each other for the gift of blood, and patients in your community rely on the generosity of Versiti’s blood donors to help. Please consider scheduling an appointment to donate. If this is your first time, donating blood is quick, easy and relatively painless. And, it is a great way to give back and help patients in your community.