DES MOINES, Iowa (KCCI) – Many Iowa State Patrol troopers were out on the roads helping people who were stuck in the snow last week. The blizzard conditions didn’t stop state troopers from putting their lives on the line to make a life-saving delivery. A surgical team in northern Iowa was running dangerously low on blood during a surgery last week. They needed more from a blood center just outside of Des Moines. That was 100 miles away, and the blizzard had already shut down parts of I-35.

Iowa State Trooper Nathan Nemmers said he knew this assignment was crucial. He told KCCI “Dispatch had advised me that there was a patient actively in the operating room waiting on these blood products and needed it emergent.” Trooper Nemmers picked up the blood products from Life Serve Blood Center. He got them to Story City, where a second trooper took the blood products further north, and a third trooper got it to the patient. The blizzard conditions made the travel treacherous. Trooper Nemmers said the journey was a bit unnerving, and it had to slow down because not a lot of snow had been removed from that section of the roadway.

Life Serve says the last they heard, the patient is in the ICU in stable condition.