Alexa Rocero, Courier Staff Writer
The Red Cross took over the school’s Old Gym to run this fall’s blood drive Thursday. It began during first period, despite all of the morning mishaps, and ran quite smoothly. Twice a year the team comes to give students the opportunity to donate, provided they meet the necessary requirements.
These requirements are based on of a variety of things. Firstly, there are specific weight and height minimums that one must meet to ensure that the giving blood will not be harmful to the donator’s health. Also, the donator must have not traveled out of the country or have gotten a tattoo in the year prior to the blood drive, both of which may affect the blood. Other than that, all blood types were encouraged to donate, provided that they were over 16 years old.
The students who signed up to donate were summoned to the Old Gym out of their respective classes this morning. They were to sign in at the door, then sit and wait for the specialists to call them into the health history booths. Here, the students’ vitals were taken, and were then asked an array of questions to determine if they were eligible to give blood. Assuming they were, the students would then head over to the tables to have their blood drawn, approximately 600 mL per person, and then were immediately given foods high in glucose to stabilize their body.
Drake Pough (12th) said, “I gave blood because I thought I would be saving someone’s life. It was pretty cool. The nurse was nice, I didn’t feel it when she poked me with the needle, I played with a rubber ball, and I got free Oreos. I’ll probably donate again, but maybe to a blood bank as well.”
This fall the blood drive was much more successful than last spring’s. Usually, the Red Cross only collects about 100 units of blood (600mL per unit) from about 90 people from Logan. On this fall’s sign up list, 160 people volunteered to donate their blood. Whether this sudden fluctuation in numbers is because of the new blood drive coordinators’ successful advertisement, or that students this year are simply more generous than previous years, the Red Cross team was very grateful nonetheless. According to American statistics, over 30% of Americans are eligible to donate blood, but less than 5% actually do.
After collected, this blood will circulate through all of the 31 hospitals in the area. The next blood drive will be this upcoming spring. So whether it’s your first time or you’ve donated before, don’t miss out in the opportunity to make a difference.
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