It took 23 units of blood products to save Elliott Wills after a routine operation turned into a fight for his life.
Elliott, 13, from Truro in Cornwall, lives with a blood disorder called spherocytosis. He was recovering from surgery when he suffered a burst main artery and lost 7 liters of blood, according to the NHS.
His father, Phill Wills, 53, said doctors told him to prepare for the worst.
“The alarm went off and a PA call went out for the crash team to scan room one. The room Elliott was in.
“The doctor appeared and told me: ‘It doesn’t look good.’
“He said Elliott had lost a drastic amount of blood.
“All of a sudden people appeared from nowhere.
“A chain of porters came running past me carrying bags of blood.
“As they whisked Elliott away I had just enough time to tell him I loved him.”
NHS Blood and Transplant said Elliott survived thanks to a medical team and 23 units of blood products, potentially from 23 individual donors. That was the equivalent of 7 liters, or three times his body’s circulatory volume.
Elliott has the rare B negative blood type, but his life was saved by emergency supplies of O negative blood. O negative can be given to anyone and is used in trauma cases when a person’s blood type is not known or if a hospital does not have fast enough access to stocks of a patient’s blood type.
Spherocytosis causes severe anemia, and Elliott has received routine transfusions of B negative blood to help him stay well.
Last year, complications from a virus left him needing his spleen and gallbladder removed. During the five-hour procedure at Bristol Royal Hospital for Children, he received three units of B negative blood that were on standby to replace blood he lost.
The surgery appeared to go well, but later that evening Elliott’s blood pressure suddenly fell and an emergency ultrasound revealed massive internal bleeding.
Phill Wills was waiting for news with two parents of other children on the ward. Elliott’s mother, Gill, could not travel to the hospital for health reasons and was at the family home with Elliott’s 12-year-old sister, Marnie.
“That day was my eldest son’s 25th birthday and all I could think was, please don’t take Elliott on Josh’s birthday,” Phill Wills said.
“At 1 a.m. my phone rang from a private number. I was terrified to answer. Then one of the other parents said it meant Elliott was alive, because if it was bad news they would tell me in person.
“The surgeon said Elliott basically lost all his blood. It was a race against time to get the donated blood into him. But he was losing that too.
“When Elliott’s notes said he’d lost 7 liters I thought it was a typo.
“Surely no one can survive losing that much blood. But Elliott is living proof they can, as long as the vital supplies of donated blood are there.”
Elliott spent three days in an induced coma. He then suffered two seizures triggered by trauma to his brain, but recovered and went home after three weeks in hospital.
He returned to Penair School in Truro in April and is making good progress. He tires easily and needs to take extra care when playing sports, but is playing soccer with his friends again.
“Elliott is kicking a ball about again and that is because blood donors gave him a second chance at life,” Phill Wills said.
“While Elliott was packing his hospital bag, someone out there was donating the blood that would save his life.
“Donors are heroes and so are the NHS teams who get the blood from the donor’s arm into the veins of a desperately ill patient like Elliott.”
This National Blood Week, Elliott and his family are urging more people to give blood regularly.
NHS Blood and Transplant said the number of regular donors with the in-demand blood types O negative and B negative has dropped 5 percent since 2020.
Around 107,000 people with O negative blood donate regularly, 6,000 fewer than in 2020. The number of regular B negative donors has dropped by 1,000 over the same period to just over 20,000.
The NHS said it needs more than 155,000 new donors this year to meet patient need. That includes 18,500 donors with priority blood groups O negative and B negative, plus 16,000 extra donors of Black heritage to help improve treatment for patients with sickle cell.
Just 8 percent of the population have O negative blood, but it makes up around 16 percent of hospital orders. Only 2 percent of the population have B negative blood, although it can be safely received by up to 13 percent of patients.
Elliott said: “Thank you to everyone who gives blood. It helped save my life.
“If you are thinking of giving blood please do. My mommy, Gill, had major spinal surgery back in March and also needed lots of blood.
“I’m looking forward to my 14th birthday on June 29, a birthday I didn’t think I would have. Thank you blood donors for my gift of life.”
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