Donating blood ... giving the gift of life

This week marks the beginning of a season when blood banks seem to teeter on the edge of crisis — need goes up in summer as active people are injured; donations dwindle with the distractions of travel and outdoor activities. The winter holiday season has similar shortfalls.

Still, in nearly two decades with ARUP Blood Services, Karen Nielsen, technical vice president, says they seem to always squeak by. "We were calling around two weeks ago and brought in about 150 units (of blood) from around the country."

After 9/11, Utahns lined up to give blood. Catastrophe is like that, blood bank experts say. The problem is, if a lot of blood is needed, there's no time to wait for donations. Because of the testing process, it takes about two days to ready a unit of blood for distribution. If the reservoir's not full, the pipeline won't flow. And few people who need blood can wait.

As for those willing donors after 9/11, "most of those donors have never come back," Nielsen says.

"People forget that the only place we're able to get blood is from donors," says Julia Wulf, CEO of Utah's chapter of the American Red Cross. "There are no proven substitutes right now, though blood-substitute products are being tested. "And we have to be ahead of the curve — anticipate, not react."

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There are donors — and lots of them — who can always be counted on to give. Just not enough, the blood services folks say.

Lisa Madsen's one. When her grandma needed platelets because chemotherapy had weakened her immune system, Madsen had the wrong blood type. She still became a platelet donor. It was a small gesture, she says, to give to others what someone else was providing for the grandmother she loved so much.

She still donates at least 12 times a year, relaxing in the chair while blood is removed, the platelets separated out and the remainder reinfused into her arm.

That blood and the components like platelets it can be broken into forms a flowing river of life was driven home a year ago when Lisa was out hiking and fell more than 150 feet.

Three blood, two platelet and two plasma transfusions later, she knows blood donation doesn't just help someone. It can be the difference between survival and death. She was hospitalized for 11 days, then in a nursing home for rehab for six weeks to heal from 10 fractures, nerve exposure and nerve damage.