
It was Tuesday, Aug. 6 – just a week before Chelsea Tuff’s due date. She and her partner, Korey Blankenship, were expecting a baby girl, and the pregnancy had been easy, with no complications.
They could not have foreseen what the next hours would bring, or how a new program in Colorado Springs in which first responders carry whole blood likely was key to Chelsea delivering a healthy baby that same day.
That morning, not long before a scheduled appointment with her midwife, Chelsea, 33, began experiencing contractions and thought that she might be in the early stages of labor.
Donating blood:
In southern Colorado and the metro Denver area, please visit Vitalant to learn more about donating blood.The program accepts referrals from Mountain Crest Behavioral Health, UCHealth and other community providers, including primary care physicians. Individuals may also self-refer.
In northern Colorado, please visit the Garth Englund Blood Donation Center.
“She checked me, and I was 3 cm dilated,” Chelsea said of the appointment with the midwife. She went home, but later that afternoon, everything changed.
“I stood up and I felt an internal pop and I was like, ‘I think my water broke.’ I went to the bathroom and saw blood. Then gushes of blood.” The blood kept coming every time she moved.
Chelsea texted her midwife and sent her a photo of the huge puddle of blood on the floor. “She immediately called me,” Chelsea said, recounting how the midwife calmly told Chelsea that she needed to get to the hospital quickly. “She said, ‘you’re going to go to Memorial Central. I’m going to call them. Everything’s going to be OK, but you need to call an ambulance.”
Korey called 911 and then calmly ushered Chelsea’s two sons, ages 10 and 12, out to the backyard and told them to wait for their grandmother, who was on her way after receiving a call from Chelsea.
Emergency medical help arrived in a matter of minutes. Because of a new partnership with UCHealth, paramedics with the Colorado Springs Fire Department were carrying whole blood, enabling them to provide potentially life-saving blood transfusions to bleeding patients before they get to the hospital.
Chelsea was experiencing a placental abruption, a condition in which the placenta prematurely tears away from the lining of the uterus. “It causes internal bleeding, and you can bleed a lot, really fast,” said Dr. Matt Angelidis, an emergency medicine physician at UCHealth and the medical director for the Colorado Springs Fire Department.

“The placenta supplies blood flow to the baby. With an abruption, there is decreased blood flow to the baby, which is why a cesarean section was needed fast. As you bleed, you lose the ability to deliver oxygen and nutrients to the baby. A whole blood transfusion buys time for baby. And it buys time for mom.”
Chelsea was a good candidate for a whole blood transfusion, which was started within minutes.
“I was scared,” Chelsea recalled. “Nobody else seemed scared. I’m sure they knew how serious it was, but they kept their cool,” she said of the EMS providers from CSFD and AMR. “I do remember they were all incredibly kind.”
Korey said everything happened very quickly: From the time he called 911 to the C-section was a little over an hour. “So, it all happened really fast,” he said. “I am extremely grateful to the paramedics and EMTs for their fast response, their kindness and their expertise, and I am also very thankful to the medical team at Memorial Hospital for the wonderful care provided there.”
Dr. Rebecca Cisneros and Dr. Dani Weise-Fleckenstein performed the emergency surgery.
“They pulled Rosie out. She cried right away,” Chelsea said. “I was really emotional.”

Since CSFD paramedics began carrying whole blood in April, it has so far been given to 35 patients in cases ranging from motor vehicle accidents, labor/delivery complications, falls, gastrointestinal hemorrhaging and gunshot wounds, according to Angelidis. Colorado Springs was the first metro region in Colorado to launch an EMS whole blood program.
“Hemorrhagic shock – bleeding to death – is the leading cause of death for people ages 45 and under, and we know that upward of 40% of these patients could survive with immediate blood transfusion in the field,” said Angelidis, who worked to launch the program in Colorado Springs.
Lifesaving whole blood program expands to northern Colorado
UCHealth and Thompson Valley Emergency Medical Services launched a whole blood program in Larimer and Weld counties on Dec. 17, 2024, to enhance emergency care and improve patient outcomes.
The initiative enables area EMS to provide life-saving whole blood transfusions to patients experiencing significant blood loss before they reach the hospital. UCHealth LifeLine teams across the state also carry whole blood.
Thompson Valley EMS services Loveland and Berthoud. UCHealth EMS services much of northern Larimer County and much of Weld County. By working together, the program covers approximately 3,450 square miles and a population of more than 550,000 people in northern Colorado. LifeLine, UCHealth’s emergency air transport, services the Front Range and southeast Wyoming.
Offering whole blood in the field requires high-tech equipment to properly store, transport, reheat and transfuse the blood. Specialized coolers and warming equipment were purchased with gifts to the UCHealth Memorial Hospital Foundation from philanthropic members of the Colorado Springs community, making the program possible.
“First responders bringing blood to the scene of an injury clearly saves lives,” said Angelidis. “I have sat in too many after-action reviews where firefighters and first responders tearfully ask what they could have done differently, knowing if they could have transfused blood the outcome might have been different. I’m proud that UCHealth is empowering first responders with the equipment to do this.”
The practice of using whole blood for massive blood loss first occurred in military battlefields, dating to World War I, and prehospital administration of whole blood is now safely being used in many EMS systems throughout the country. Whole blood – blood with none of its components separated or removed – is safe for patients of all blood types suffering traumatic injury or internal bleeding, like the kind Chelsea suffered, said Angelidis.
“Looking at your case, looking at your vitals, I personally believe the whole blood transfusion was helpful,” he explained to Chelsea and Korey recently. “We don’t know for sure, but the outcome without the whole blood transfusion could have been very different.
“I do think it’s fair to say this is why we are doing this,” he said. “This is why we fought so hard to get whole blood in our city, so I’m glad it was there for Chelsea and Rosie. I’m glad we have a healthy baby here, and a happy mom.”