eli5: What happens when you get a blood transfusion with the wrong/incompatible blood type?

Question

eli5: What happens when you get a blood transfusion with the wrong/incompatible blood type?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Depending on the blood types involved, either your blood attacks the transfusion or the transfusion attacks your blood. At best, this results in you losing even more blood cells than you started with, and more often, since the blood is mixed throughout your body in seconds, the inflammation and cell damage causes cardiac and respiratory distress, multi-system failure, or even death.