Thermal container helps save lives in the sky

Logistics professionals face unique challenges every day in moving perishable cargo such as food and medicine, but few freight categories present as many challenges as blood.

Blood demands even tighter control over temperature variation than is provided by standard cold chain logistics because the cargo can spoil in mere hours, losing all its life-saving properties.

That was a persistent problem for PHI, a Lafayette, La.-based company that provides air medical transport and medevac operations. For years, the helicopter crews had no good way to transport blood, forcing them to make special trips to blood banks once they discovered a patient needed a transfusion.

Recently, the air medical group found a solution in Series 4-EMT carriers from Pelican BioThermal of Plymouth, Minn. These extended passive thermal control carriers can keep critical blood supplies at safe temperatures for up to 48 hours. Now, these life-saving blood supplies can be taken along on even?the longest medevac flights, allowing paramedics to conduct in-flight transfusions and provide emergency room-level treatment for patients even in remote locations.