Bridgeport Hospital celebrated the expansion of its prehospital blood transfusion program Tuesday.

Milford Fire-EMS has now joined the program and its commander vehicle will now carry whole blood. A shift commander who is responding to any major incident will be able to provide blood to patients by starting a transfusion in the field.

All patients are given O positive blood.

"An instance where blood might be needed was a real bad medical where someone was bleeding out faster than we can put it back in and may not be able to wait for rapid transport to the hospital," says Battalion Chief Jeff Luciano.

Luciano says other times where a transfusion might be necessary include incidents on I-95 or bad car crashes where victims have multiple injuries and or are bleeding out.

First responders say the critical services save lives.

"I can say with certainty that numerous patients have had a better outcome than they ever would have had without the blood products," says Dr. Douglas Latham, an ER Physician at Bridgeport Hospital.

The program began in 2025 and since then crews have administered blood to 16 critically ill patients in the field.