As Sean Brandt sat in a blue medical chair at the Lane Memorial Blood Bank, he squeezed the orange stress ball keeping his blood flowing from his arm to a tube, which siphoned blood from his arm to an adjacent donation bag.
“I believe it’s making a difference for those people that need blood,” said Brandt, a registered nurse for Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend.
To kickoff this year’s ninth annual Civil War Blood Drive against Oregon State University, the American Red Cross has issued a renewed call for people to donate blood and prevent shortages in the local blood supply. The University’s blood drive begins on Nov. 15.
“The holidays are a very difficult time for blood banks, so drawing a whole bunch of people right before the holidays come in November have worked really well for us,” Lane Memorial Blood Bank spokesperson Kristi McElhinney said. “The blood supply is a little bit low, but it is more that were anticipating the shortage that we always face every year from Thanksgiving all through the holidays.”
McElhinney said that in this particular rivalry against the two schools, the University has not won the blood battle against Oregon State for the past several years. Oregon State University students donated more than 1,000 pints of blood whereas University students only donated 604 pints during last year’s Civil War Blood Drive, McElhinney said.
Brandt, who has regularly donated blood 24 times over the past three years, said the blood donation process is “relatively pain-free.”
“I feel like it’s just something that, if more people did, there wouldn’t be a lot of situations where there was a shortage in blood supplies,” Brandt said. “There’s really no excuse for it … and it’s just a few minutes out of your day to help people out.”
Brandt said one of the people helped from his donations was a friend who had suffered from cancer and received his blood as a part of her treatment.
“It was a really rewarding feeling,” Brandt said. “There’s someone who can put a face to a number.”
John Fronda, a registered nurse at the Lane Memorial Blood Bank, said that it’s important for the blood bank to have a regular stream of donors, since the shelf life of red blood cells is limited to 42 days. Fronda also said blood is not only given to local-area hospitals in Eugene and Florence, but are also sent to ones out of state that are
experiencing blood shortages.
Terri Madsen, a technician at the Lane Memorial Blood Bank, explained that after a person donates blood, it is separated into plasma and red blood cells, which are then given to hospitals for surgical blood transfusions.
Before the blood is given to hospitals, Madsen said the blood is sent to Seattle to be tested for communicable diseases that can be transmitted to patients that receive the blood. However, once the blood is screened, it can be passed on to patients who are in need.
“You can affect three different lives with one donation,” Madsen said. “Life is in the blood, and you can’t replace it.”
[email protected]