How many JW’S die each year for want of a Blood Transfusion? According to the Red Cross and various National Blood Banks 4.5 million American lives are saved each year by blood transfusions. ... https://rrvbc.org/blood-facts/
Since JW’S make up .8% of the US population. .8% of those 4.5 million who needed a transfusion is 3600. So roughly speaking 3600 JWs plus or minus will face this situation each year in the US alone.
Here’s a short list of the serious medical problems that call for blood:
Children being treated for Cancer, premature infants, Children having heart surgery. Serious Anemic issues are treated with blood transfusions to build up iron.
Cancer, Organ Transplants typically require 40 units of blood, 30 units of platelets, 25 units of fresh frozen plasma.
Trauma patients. Open heart surgery often requires platelet transfusions to survive.
Sickle cell disease can call for four pints of blood per month.
Giving birth if the mother hemorrhages.
Among the 4.5 million that need blood are Trauma victim’s. Victim’s of vehicle accidents, various types of workplace accidents, fire, criminal assault, falls etc. There are 192,000 deaths from Trauma per year on average in the US. It is the leading cause of death for people age 1 to 44.
Out of the 192,000 deaths...... 1536 are JW’s ( representing .8 of the trauma deaths).
With Trauma......... blood loss is often the most immediate emergency. Some blood loss victims may need transfusions of 50 pints or more of red blood cells. http://www.nationaltraumainstitute.org/home/trauma_statistics.html
“After a traumatic injury, hemorrhage is responsible for over 35% of pre-hospital deaths and over 40% of deaths within the first 24 hours,[1] second only to the rates of death due to severe central nervous system injury. A cascade of life-threatening medical problems can begin with severe hemorrhage, and many of these occur simultaneously: 1) hemorrhage, 2) impaired resuscitation, 3) shock, 4) inflammation and 5) coagulopathy (Fig. 1). The severity of each problem is commonly associated with the extent of overall blood loss.
Low blood pressure due to blood loss indicates immediate complications, including the incidence of multiple organ failure and life-threatening infections.[2, 3]”
https://rrvbc.org/blood-facts/
So among those 1536 JWs that died from Traumatic injuries 537 died before they were even brought to the hospital. 40% or 614 died in the hospital within the first 24 hours directly from hemorrhage . We don’t know how many would have survived if they were transfused within that first 24 hour period. Which leaves 389 JW’s who died later on from their injuries which without a transfusion made it impossible, in many cases, to survive.
So if the math is correct 3600 JW’s on average need a life saving blood transfusion every year. Noting how much blood is needed for the high risk procedures....... the witness who refuses blood could have died of something that may have been treatable. We can’t be certain how many lived and how many died without one. Or how many could have been saved if they were able to get a blood transfusion or even a blood cell salvage....using their own blood?
Overall I used to think that at least 1000 JW’s died World Wide each year for want of a blood transfusion. Looking at the above numbers and seeing how many different life saving treatments depend on blood I am now leaning toward one to two thousand out of the 3600 that needed a life saving blood transfusion died for want of that blood in the USA alone.