Oct. 8, 2025

In late May 2024, excitement quickly turned to dread on McKenna Street in Glasgow, Kentucky. 

With just a handful of days left in the school year, the anticipation of summer could be felt and heard in the Glasgow neighborhood as 15-year-old Matthew Arms played kickball with his friends while his mother, Lori Bunch, and family members carried groceries inside. 

In an instant, everything changed. Lori heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot, and the screams of “Matthew” quickly sunk her heart. 

“I remember the scream that said, ‘Oh, my God, someone has been shot! Oh, my God, Matthew has been shot!’ ” Lori said. “My kid was the only one named Matthew at the time.”

In a disagreement, a 20-year-old pulled a gun on Matthew and shot him in the abdomen. Things happened so fast that it’s a blur for Lori, but she knew it was bad and that seconds were precious to save her son’s life.

“At the time, I didn’t know where he was shot,” Lori said. “I didn’t know if it was his head or if it was his heart because you think of those two things first. Those are the deadly ones. …. I couldn’t see my kid dying on the street that he grew up on. I couldn’t. All I could do was call 911 and get somebody else there to help him.”

Emergency medical services arrived within minutes. Matthew was quickly transported to his local hospital and then airlifted to a Louisville hospital, where he received immediate transfusions.

“They had to give him six units of blood in the helicopter because he had no blood pressure,” Lori said. “None. His blood pressure and his hemoglobin weren’t readable when they got him. When they opened him up two and a half hours after the initial injury, it took three doctors pulling out blood clot after blood clot so they could find where the bleeding was coming from.”

Originally thought to be a liver bleed, Matthew had suffered major trauma to his iliac artery and iliac veins. The iliac system is crucial for pumping blood to and from the heart to the pelvis and lower limbs. A massive amount of blood goes through the system, and an injury to the region can be fatal in a matter of minutes. 

“They were pumping (blood) in as it was coming out,” Lori said.  

Matthew underwent a number of harrowing surgeries over the coming days. He was eventually transported to Cincinnati Children’s Hospital for further treatment. 

More than a year removed from the trauma, Matthew is recovering well all things considered. He lost his spleen and his colon, and he now suffers from chronic kidney disease.

Matthew is learning to deal with the emotional and psychological challenges of the traumatic injury, but the 10th grader is back to hanging out with friends and family members. Slowly but surely, Matthew is returning to doing many of the things he did pre-injury. 

“He has made a remarkable recovery,” Lori said. “The chronic kidney disease will shorten his life, but it's going to be a life that's worth living and it's going to be a well-thought and a well-loved life.”

None of which would have been possible without the availability of blood.   

“Blood can be replenished,” Lori said. “You may never know that your child is going to need it next, or your family member that's going to need it.”