NEW ORLEANS — It's a lifesaving technique New Orleans EMS implemented, and it's saving lives. This week, that technique saved another life.
Monday just after 2 p.m. New Orleans Paramedic and Field Training Officer Saber Holland arrived at a bloody scene, Holland said, "They directed us to the kitchen, and we found her sitting in a chair there."
He went on to say, "The towel that was on her was soaked. Her dress was soaked in blood."
NOPD says officers found a 70-year-old woman whose arm had been severely injured. Police say the incident involved "some sort of chainsaw" in the 1200 block of Riviera Avenue.
Holland said, "She looked real bad when we first got to her, her skin color looked a little pale, she was pretty sweaty, a little anxious obviously, after everything she had gone through, she had a little bit of active bleeding going on."
He says he and his team were able to stop the bleeding, but the victim's lacerations were deep. "We didn't know how deep it went initially because our goal is to stop the bleeding and get her out of there right, so we don't know if we had any separation of the bone, joint."
He says he knew she needed blood and soon because there was a chance she could lose her arm.
"We ended up giving her one unit of blood and then the associated medications with that, which is TXA and calcium, which help prevent and aid in the metabolic changes that occur with severe trauma."
New Orleans EMS has been administering blood to patients since 2021, the technique boosts people's chance of survival on the way to the hospital. Holland said, "We got that on, her blood pressure came up, her heart rate came down, and her skin color looked a lot better. She was doing significantly better than when we first got to her."
Monday's victim was the 270th person to get blood from New Orleans EMS since the program started. The victim remains stable in the hospital.
34-year-old John Pittman is the victim's son.
He's facing an attempted first-degree murder charge as well as battery on a police officer from Monday's incident. NOPD says two officers were injured. Pittman is scheduled to appear for a mental competency hearing Thursday morning.
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