OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Two Oklahoma City Fire Department paramedics jumped into action on Monday to rush blood to a man in critical need dozens of miles away, and managed to get him to a hospital alive.
“There’s never a typical day in what we do,” said Holly Jones, a Medic Field Operations Supervisor for the Oklahoma City Fire Department (OKCFD).
But Jones and OKCFD EMS Battalion Chief Carl Cobb say what happened Monday wasn’t even something on their radar as a possibility.
Emergency Blood Shortage declared; donors urgently needed
“It was a special circumstance,” Cobb said.
It all started with a phone call Cobb got Monday morning from an Elk City paramedic he knew.
The paramedic told Cobb he was rushing a man—badly injured by a bulldozer—from Elk City to OU Medical Center in Oklahoma City.
The approximately 120 mile drive would take about two hours.
But the Elk City paramedic told Cobb the man was quickly losing blood, and likely wouldn’t make it to the hospital before running out.