No medical background, but a regular donor here. Plasma donations involve taking your blood out, separating the plasma, and returning everything else in a continuous process.

This other article about one of the victims indicated that the machine issued 5 high-pressure alerts about this return process, all of which were ignored.

It's not unusual to get an alert or two. Sometimes there's a kink in the tubing, or an improperly positioned needle. Sometimes I fall asleep and the pressure drops.

Properly trained staff should know by the nature and frequency of the alerts to terminate the process. In that particular incident, even the machine told them to terminate, but was ignored.

[–] Andonyx@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ah gotcha! thanks, I didn't realize there was a "return" stream.

[–] RustySharp@programming.dev 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

There's only one needle. So the machine works in multiple suck-return cycles (separation happens simultaneously during return). Roughly every 5-10 minutes. The final return will include a bag of saline to replace the plasma they took.

Which is why one or two warnings are not usually a major concern, as long as the following cycles are okay. But usually after 3 (in my personal experience), they just say, "not your day, come back in two weeks hey?"

[–] Andonyx@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's interesting. is a one-needle cycle better than say a two needle loop for safety or efficiency?

[–] RustySharp@programming.dev 3 points 1 day ago

From the receiving end of the needle, having two streams would likely double the chance of errors happening. Even the best phlebotomist has a bad day. Also, veins often move when you try to stab them.

Not to mention any blood-related equipment are single-use. So the needle, tubes, containers, they all go to a special bin (I hope to be recycled). Doubling up would unnecessarily increase the cost/effort.

I would highly recommend going to your nearest centre and learn by donating yourself! 😀