Where does your blood go?

Originally Posted on Emerald Media via UWIRE

You got the call and saw the giant smiling red blood drop outside the EMU, advertising the 12th annual Civil War Blood Drive. Maybe you even donated. But after the needle was extracted from your arm, did you wonder where your bag of blood might go?

After donation, the blood is held in quarantine while small vials are sent up to Washington for testing. The blood is tested 13 times using viral marker tests, which include analysis for infections like HIV and Hepatitis C, according to the Lane Blood Center.

During that time, the center processes the blood. White blood cells are removed and the blood is separated into condensed whole red cells, platelets and plasma.

Whole red blood cells carry oxygen throughout the body and are essential for trauma patients and individuals going through chemotherapy, which damages bone marrow and is responsible for producing red blood cells.

Platelets are also produced in bone marrow, acting as blood clots that prevent bleeding when necessary.

Plasma makes up 55 percent of blood and is used for patients losing significant amounts of blood. At Lane Blood Center plasma is processed even further to create cryoprecipitate, which is a frozen blood product of plasma that contains special clotting factors, which are vital for controlling bleeding.

This is where the slogan saving three lives comes from. Each bag of blood is able to produce these different components, which are able to go to different people and even different states.

Lane Blood Center supplies blood to all the hospitals in Lane County as well as some in other states.

“We partner with communities beyond Lane County because we have such generous donors,” said Marshall White, marketing and donor recruitment director. “Specifically communities in southern California who just can’t meet the need for their communities alone.”

Once the tests from Washington come back negative, the blood can be released to hospitals. While there are many things happening to prepare the blood for transfusion the whole process takes only about 48 hours.

At the hospital the blood is held in the blood bank. The shelf life is 42 days, but it’s unlikely for it to make it that long before getting used. According to White, in the United States a blood transfusion happens every two seconds and in Lane County every 33 minutes.

“There is nothing out there that can replace human blood,” Cindy Clover, blood lab manager at Sacred Heart RiverBend said. “People have tried but as of right now there isn’t anything so it’s very important to have donors.”

Chelsie Wong, mobile recruitment supervisor for Lane Blood Center sees a big benefit to the Civil War Blood Drive because of the increase in donations.

“The UO students are doing that,” Wong said. “Every year more donors and volunteers return to make an even bigger impact on Oregon’s blood supply.”

Wong says last year’s Civil War Blood Drive brought in around 900 donors and while the totals from this year are still being added up, she is enthusiastic about the numbers.

Read more here: http://dailyemerald.com/2013/11/18/where-does-your-blood-go/
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