Transshipment Center: 'blood line' of AOR

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Tong Duong
  • 379th Air Expeditionary Wing Public Affairs
SOUTHWEST ASIA --  Shipping blood to the far reaches of the earth including Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and the Horn of Africa, a five member Blood Transshipment Center team in Southwest Asia does its part to process and deliver quality, life-saving blood to war fighters and civilian casualties.

Servicemembers donate thousands of units all over the world. Packed in ice and shipped in Styrofoam, they are collected and processed at the BTC here, before being distributed to servicemembers down range.

"We provide packaged red blood cells, frozen plasma, cryoprecipitate and frozen blood," said 1st Lt. Nichole Scheuer, 379th Expeditionary Medical Group BTC officer in charge deployed from MacDill Air Force Base, Fla.

"The BTC team and base volunteers perform quality control for the frozen units, ensuring defective products aren't being distributed to the blood supply depots in Iraq and Afghanistan," she said.

A simple but time consuming procedure, inspecting the units for cracks and breakage could take the BTC team an additional eight hours a day without the help volunteers, Lieutenant Scheuer said.

Sourced primarily from military donors, but occasionally purchased from civilian agencies, the delicate products must be handled with a sense of urgency and care, she said.

"The biggest challenge is making the sure that the blood reaches its final destination within 48 hours of packing the shipment so that proper temperature is maintained," the prior enlisted Reservist said. "Fortunately, there has been no loss of product during [Air Expeditionary Force] 1 and 2."

While the sight of blood may bother some members, Senior Airman Garrett Olivier, a 379th EMDG medical laboratory technician from MacDill, works around it on a daily basis.

"The [sight of blood] bothered me when it wasn't my own," said the Airman who joined the Air Force to seek a higher education. "Now I work with it on a daily basis, so I'm used to it."

Airman Garrett believes in helping those who are in need and feels the medical field is the best place to do that.

"Every blood product we ship out will be used to potentially save the life of a fellow servicemember or civilian, so they may make it home to their families and loved ones," he said.