Low clotting factors quickly culminate in coagulopathy, where the blood can’t clot at all. This feedback loop is known as the “trauma triad of death.” You can dump as much blood as you want into a person, but once the coagulopathy cascade has begun, it’s hard to stop. Ironically, the more saline you give a person before giving them actual blood, the more you dilute the clotting factors and the more danger they are in. Had Joe given me another IV bag in the ambulance, as I’d asked, my odds of entering the trauma triad of death would have gone up to 40 percent.
