The American Red Cross said the non-profit is experiencing an emergency blood shortage just as we enter what's called summer trauma season.
That's the time of year when emergency rooms see a surge in patients due to outdoor accidents, car crashes and other emergencies.
WOSU's Stu Osborne spoke with Donald Hawkins, of the American Red Cross of Central and Southern Ohio, about the urgent need for donations.
Stu Osborne: The national blood supply fell nearly 25% in June. What caused such an increased need?
Donald Hawkins: You know, we saw a bigger amount of requests coming in from our hospital and medical center partners. That can be attributed to trauma situations and uptake in and regularly planned procedures even. All these things kind of snowball into us running into a shortage whenever we see an increased amount of requests from those partners for blood. The decrease in the amount of appointments that are being made and donations being made because of summer travel and other things that complicate people's schedules.
Stu Osborne: Now, how vital is it for emergency rooms and other medical facilities to have a robust blood supply available?
Donald Hawkins: It is one of the most important things that you can have in an emergency room. They need to have a strong supply of all types of blood, truly, because a lot of times they do have the luxury of figuring out what that blood type is and they can give that person the type that they know that they need. You never want to see someone need blood and not be able to get it, especially in an emergency situation.
Stu Osborne: Now overall blood donations are also down since the end of May. What is your message to anyone who is able to donate or anyone who may be on the fence about whether or not they should donate?
Donald Hawkins: You know, if you are someone who's donated in the past, and you're, you know, you would have been considered a regular blood donor, or just have experience doing that, we would love to have you come back out. We need you, quite frankly. We do need you. I talk to a lot of people who do reside on that fence. They want to do something. They want to give blood. They want you to help, but they are afraid of the procedure. They're afraid of the time commitment. They don't know what goes into it. And for those people, I would implore them to think about it. The fact that your donation could be the difference between life and death for someone. We find that a lot of people do not understand how blood supplies work and that we cannot stockpile it. It has a finite shelf life and with those regular donations we're able to ensure that everyone who needs (help) is able to get the blood.
Stu Osborne: Now, other than the incentive of like you said saving someone's life, do you guys offer incentives for people who go to say a big blood drive and donate or one of the local blood centers?
Donald Hawkins: Yeah, anyone who comes to give blood with us right now is going to get a free movie ticket from Fandango via email after the blood donation is done. Fandango is an amazing partner of ours and they're really stepping up. You know, there's a lot of good stuff coming out. The movie's in the next few weeks and it's air-conditioned. It's gonna be really hot here in central Ohio. You know come give blood early this week. Get you a movie ticket and go this weekend. Stay cool and go and enjoy hopefully some really awesome movies. I'm very excited for this weekend as well.
Stu Osborne: Now for anyone who wants to do so, where can they go for information?
Donald Hawkins: So we have two amazing resources that we love to push all the time. It's redcrossblood.org, the Red Cross blood donor app. Both of these work in very similar ways. You'll open up the app or you'll go to the website. You can put in your zip code and it'll show you all the blood drives nearest to that zip code. You can book your appointment through the app, through the website, if you do all that, you'll have your appointment made. You can go in and it will take you about an hour once you get there to make that blood donation.
