Hello! I was reading through the blood transfusion stuff and didn't see anything about person to person transfusions. I have a Person A who gets shot at one point and will need a transfusion from Person B, but going to a hospital/clinic (or robbing a blood bank) is kinda out of the question. I'm curious as to what kind of things would be needed to set such a transfusion up, and how much blood B can give A before being at risk themselves. There is a Person C watching over/administering to them.
Hey there nonny! This goes right back to the early days of blood transfusions.
The best tool they can possibly have for this is bunk beds. They’ll also need some IV tubing, two needles, and some tape.
Oh, and a sippy cup. (What I mean is a small vessel for containers; this can be a shot glass, a Mason jar, whatever.)
First, the characters need to be ABSOLUTELY SURE of their blood types. If they don’t know them (who does? – Okay lots of people…), they’ll need to mix their blood in a sippy cup and wait to see if they react. If there’s lots of clumping or clotting in the cup, they shouldn’t transfuse.
Also, y’know, there’s risks of bloodborne diseases (hepatitis, HIV, etc.) moving from one character to another.
Okay. Assuming all of that’s on the level. Here’s the how-tos:
Person A is going to lie on the bottom bunk (or lie on the floor), while B will lie on the top bunk (or on a bed). Your third party will start an IV on person B and let the tubing fill with blood. Then they’ll start a line on person A. They’ll hook up the IV tubing to A’s IV, and let blood flow between them.
(This doesn’t have to be done with beds; a bedroll on the floor and a high stool will work. But bunks make it easy.)
As to “for how long”, I’m not fully sure. I would suggest they stop when Person B starts to get dizzy, but that happens at different stages of the transfusion process for every donor, and flow rates really aren’t known. So you do have some risk of Person B donating too much.
However, here’s the trick of this: The IV tubing? Isn’t designed to work for this. It’s actually, uhhh, not supposed to have two male ends (that screw onto the IV catheters). So they’re going to need to find a special adapter that will help them go from female to male. (If this is a kit that’s been issued or something, this can be simply a part of your story; if it’s a field improvisation, then I’d go with some cutting of IV tubing and taping to the end of the catheter, and finally, you can just ignore it if you really don’t feel like using the energy to find this particular MacGuffin.)
And then, TA-DA!!! Your character has a lovely transfusion from a friend on a bunk bed. (Aren’t bunk beds wonderful?)
Make sure you give your characters milk and cookies afterwards, because a) they just gave/received blood and b) milk and cookies.
Thanks for the ask and good luck!
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