Interstate efforts save four lives in Eugene.

Byline: Rebecca Nolan The Register-Guard

The call came at 9 p.m. on a Thursday.

Four patients undergoing emergency surgeries at Sacred Heart Medical Center desperately needed transfusions of blood platelets.

Oregon Medical Labs, the transfusion service laboratory that handles blood needs for the Eugene hospital, had only one dose - and that was reserved for another patient. The Lane Memorial Blood Bank in Eugene had none.

That phone call from the lab to the blood bank sparked a high-stakes, multiagency effort to find and transport the urgently needed platelets to Eugene.

"All it would have taken is one person to let the ball drop, and people probably would have died," said Christine Stockdale, communications affairs manager at the blood bank.

Platelets are good for only five days after blood is drawn from a donor, so blood banks must estimate ahead of time how many units they need to collect. Managing the inventory can be a challenge, as it was the night of Nov. 16.

"Sometimes we wish we had a crystal ball here so we know how many doses we'll need," Stockdale said. "This particular time, we obviously needed more doses than we were able to anticipate."

Erica Broderick, the blood bank's hospital services specialist, called her boss, Dr. Michael Herz, the blood bank's medical director, who in turn called the hospital to assess the situation.

Broderick then called Terrie Duarte, the blood bank's hospital services manager, to talk about finding a blood bank - somewhere - that could spare the platelets for the critical surgeries in Eugene.

They found what they needed at the American Red Cross in Portland.

Kelly McMullen at the Red Cross told the elated Eugene crew that six doses were available and could be sent south immediately.

Another Red Cross worker called the Oregon State Police, which has helped in similar emergencies in the past. But four lives had never hung in the balance before, Stockdale said.

State police Sgt. Tom Worthy in Portland orchestrated the transport down Interstate 5. It would become a kind of blood relay - troopers driving with overhead lights flashing from one drop-off point to the next.

The journey began when senior trooper Yvette Shephard picked up the blood at the Red Cross in Portland and raced to Salem in her patrol car.

There, she handed the cargo to senior trooper Joe DelGreco, who drove to Albany and passed the package off to trooper Russell Decker. Decker ferried the load to trooper Rickey Hamilton in Springfield, who delivered it to Sacred Heart at 11:09 p.m., a little more than two hours after the Eugene blood bank first got the call.

Lab personnel checked the temperature of the doses and finished paperwork. The blood was in the operating room by 11:20 p.m.

All four patients are still alive, Stockdale said.

Herz, the blood bank's medical director, and Douglas Engel, its executive director, sent a letter to Gov. Ted Kulongoski on Thursday praising the efforts of everyone involved.