ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Lori and Cidney McMinn were heading to dinner one night.
They went to make a lefthand turn, saw a car speeding towards them, and woke up in the hospital. Cidney made it out with just a broken rib and significant bruising on his legs, but Lori was in dire straights. However, Lori is alive today, thanks in large part to Captain Dyana Alexander of Orange County Fire Rescue.
The two reunited at an Orange County Fire Rescue Station Thursday, shortly after Lori was released from the hospital.
“I’m so grateful,” Lori told Captain Alexander.
“For your children to have an opportunity to say ‘I love you, Mom,’ again is really special,” Captain Alexander told her patient.
The two talked about what it took to save Lori’s life. Lori, a nurse, says she looked at her patient chart while she was still in the hospital.
“I looked at my vital signs at intake,” she said. “If they had not given my blood, I wouldn’t have had any vital signs.
Photo of crash via Cidney McMinn
Lori is the first patient to benefit from a new program Orange County Fire Rescue is implementing. Paramedics were able to recognize she had internal hemorrhaging and gave her a blood transfusion right there on the scene before she even got to the hospital.
“I’m so glad this program was implemented because I can only imagine how many more lives you guys would go on to save,” said Lori.
Orange County has three captains carrying 2 liters of O-positive blood in these coolers. The blood is good for about two weeks. If any liters go unused after ten days, they’ll take them back to the hospital, where they’ll be used that day, and the firefighters will trade them out for fresh blood.
One Blood’s Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications, Susan Forbes, attended Lori’s reunion with her saviors.
“In instant, any one of us can find ourselves on the receiving end of a blood transfusion,” said Forbes.
She says Lori serves as an example of why donating blood is so important – especially if you’re O-positive or O-negative.
“Blood donors played a huge role in helping give her this second chance at life. And to be here for her family.”
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