DHS Red Cross Club offers last blood drive of the year
Bluedevilhub.com Staff–
There is no better feeling than knowing you saved someone’s life, and really, it is not difficult to find the opportunity. The Davis High Red Cross Club held a school wide blood drive on Mar. 11 to offer DHS students a chance to be heros.
To participate in the blood drive, a patient must be at least 16 years old, weigh at least 110 pounds and must be free of any illness or infection. This rules out a large number of potential donors.
There were around 130 signups for the spring blood drive. The fall blood drive had around 115, but about 15 students did not show up or did not qualify to donate blood.
However, the number of donors have risen from the past years, according to senior and vice president of the Red Cross Club, Emily Paciulla.
“I think we have a lot more donors than we used to get. People are actually showing up so it’s great because we can get a lot more blood and help out more people,” Paciulla said.
The average red blood cell transfusion is three pints; however, the school blood drive takes one pint due to safety issues.
Giving blood really does make a difference in others’ lives. Around 1,000 babies are born with sickle cell disease every year and need blood transfusions throughout their lives. More than 41,000 blood donations are needed every day. Someone in the U.S needs blood every two seconds. A single car accident victim may require 100 pints of blood at once.
Senior Dustin Choi agrees that if someone listed these statistics to him, he would donate blood.
Choi, who donated blood today for the sixth time, said he donates blood because he feels proud in being able to save someone’s life. Choi plans on donating a total of a gallon of blood, which is equivalent to 8 pints.
“Every time I donate blood, I’m so proud that I have contributed to saving someone’s life and I don’t want to stop donating. ” Choi said.
