Firstly I am very sorry to hear about the situation with your son, it must have been a very traumatic experience for you and a very sad experience for you and your family.
I am not medically qualified and I do not know the specifics of this particular case, so you should read my comments with those facts in mind. I hope that other qualified persons will be able to provide more specific "technical" information for you with regard to EPO.
My understanding is that EPO (when used with I/V iron - typically "Venofer" in the UK) will take typically from 3 - 7 days to start to increase the volume of red blood cells and these will increase well then from 5-14+ days. This being the case it would seem that it would not be a treatment suitable for IMMEDIATE results in the field of trauma, eg road traffic accident resulting in heavy blood loss. However it might well be used with a view to increasing blood levels post-operatively, (or pre-operatively before known surgery).
In this particular situation you say that your son entered hospital with a blood count of 14, a figure which would be an acceptably normal level for a male.
On the surface this would indicate that there would have been scope for the use of intra-operative cell salvage or haemodilution, both of which would be used with the explicit intention of conserving blood. The cell-saver conserving blood shed from the surgical site during the operation and haemodilution conserving the blood immediately prior to operating by drawing off blood (which remains connected to the JW patient) and partially replacing it with a volume expanding solution, thereby having the blood available for reinfusion.
Of course, in cases of serious blood loss time is of the essence and the quicker surgical action is taken to stop the bleeding the better, often problems are caused by delay.
I do not know if you are familiar with cell-salvage but it is a mechanical means of recovering, cleaning, filtering and re-infusing blood which is "lost" at the surgical site. In effect any blood "lost" by the surgeon during the course of the operation may not need to be lost by the patient as it can be recovered by the cell-salvage equipment and then reinfused immediately into the patient. It is known that in general terms salvaged blood is MUCH more beneficial than stored blood for such use, particularly in its ability to hold and deliver oxygen.
Whilst cell-salvage is I believe widely used in the US, in the UK it is frustratingly under-used. Whilst some hospitals (eg Morriston, Swansea and Devon & Exeter) have pioneered the use of cell-salvage in the UK many hospitals when having them available do not routinely make use of them as they will often departmentalize them rather then using them hospital-wide. Progress is being made and with the recent iniciatives by the NHS Executive to force Trusts to investigate alternatives to blood transfusions, we can look forward to an increased use. As part of a local HLC we are regularly visiting hospitals to "educate" them on the use of alternatives to blood transfusion. Great improvments are being made but there will always be room for improving further. It would be true to say that in our particular area in the last 3 years we have seen dramatic improvements in non-blood facilities available to JW's and whilst this is sadly of no benefit to your son, there is perhaps some comfort to be gained in the fact that others may well be saved your loss in the future. I hope that this brief attempt at assistance may have proved useful.