On July 29, an American was heavily wounded in a traffic accident in Beijing. Since the victim had a rare blood type, Beijing medical department had to urgently collect lifesaving blood from volunteers in order to successfully rescue him.

According to Yu Xuezhong, the director of Emergency Department of Peking Union Medical College Hospital (PUMCH), the 52-year-old American patient was suffering from an abdominal infection and gastrointestinal hemorrhaging, which caused severe anemia. He was then sent to PUMCH because no matching blood donor could be found.

PUMCH tried many different treatments including hemostasis, anti-shock and anti-infection. After repeated and unsuccessful attempts at finding a matching blood donor, the emergency department had to seek for help from Beijing Blood Center and other departments, hoping to collect Fya antigen negative blood belonging to the O-Rhd negative Duffy blood-group system. Beijing Red Cross Blood Center immediately checked the Volunteers with Rare Blood Archive founded by Beijing United Family Hospitals & Clinics, which informs blood-matched volunteers via short messages and telephone calls to donate blood in a short amount of time. 5 blood donors donated 1800cc of blood.

"With the combined efforts of the different departments, PUMCH was able to control the bleeding and rescue the patient." Yu Xuezhong said, "The rescue of our foreign friend was successfully done by PUMCH, Beijing Blood Center and anonymous volunteers, which reflected our emergency capability during Olympics."

(China.org.cn by Ma Yujia July 30, 2008)