On Wednesday, November 16, Student Council held a blood drive for United Blood Services out of Rapid City. The turn out was great and United Blood Services was very happy to receive all of the donations. Hannah Kesterson, a senior here at AHS, donated blood for the first time. She stated, “ I wanted to be able to help people and I was healthy enough, so there wasn’t really a reason not to.” She continued to say she likes the program because there are plenty of students that want to help and are healthy, so it’s nice to have a place to go.
United Blood services offered a challenge for the school to try to beat the previous record, set in the spring of 2009, of 84 units of blood. We fell short by about 20 units, but still contributed a large help to the group, as their units had been coming in at about half of what they hoped.
Mrs. McBride stated, “It’s a wonderful program and a good time for students to start a good habit. It’s a good cause and don’t knock it until you try it. The nurses are excellent and have always gotten my vein on the first try. It really helped me to get over my fear of needles.”
The drive holds two types of donations. There is the typical one pint of whole blood that is done by a small machine that measures the amount of blood donated. It stops after a pint and the nurse removes the needle and preps the bag. I went through the longer, easier donation. The process starts with a sign in and a bottle of water that I highly recommend drinking. All of it. If you donate a whole pint of blood, you will definitely need it. Then you head to the long interview of random questions about the possibility of having Aids. After you are cleared, well if you are, you head out to a donor seat. The nurse will ask a few more questions then prep the machine. They check your arms for the stronger vein, then clean that arm. After your arm is clean, they tape the tube onto your arm and quickly and (mostly) painlessly insert then needle into the vein, and finally cover the insert site. For the machine I was on, it takes out the whole blood, it then returns the platelets and the plasma with a saline solution and draws two pints of red blood cells. The reason this is easier is that it rehydrates as it draws the blood so you can walk away after they remove the needle and wrap your arm. If you donate one pint of whole blood, you will more likely need to stay and rehydrate with juice and try some of the cookies to get your blood sugar back up. For a little bit of time, you can save a life and get cookies.
