Bronaugh hosts school year's final blood drive

Kailey Harrell, a junior at Bronaugh, donates blood for her third time under the skillfull hands of Red Cross nurse Samantha Carr. Gabe Franklin/Daily Mail

Nevada Daily Mail

Bronaugh R-7 High School collected 27 units in its final Red Cross blood drive of the school year, Wednesday afternoon.

Mandy Murphy, a 17-year-old junior was donating for the first time. Murphy said that her mother was in a car wreck as a teenager and lost five pints of blood. Her mother told her that if it had not been for other's donated blood, she would not have lived. Murphy said donating blood was a little scary at first and she became light headed near the end, but she will donate again.

Junior Kailey Harrell is a three-time donor. Her first donation was to help her cousin in a scholarship drive. She said she will donate again, but doing so is sometimes difficult because of scheduling.

American Red Cross Account Manager Stephanie Hillenburg said they come to Bronaugh four times a year and to Liberal twice a year. The blood drive at Bronaugh typically draws 20 to 22 donors, and on Wednesday afternoon, there was already a waiting line for the four available beds.

Hillenburg said that most of the Red Cross nurses also donate. When the nurses are eligible and there are no waiting lines they will go ahead and donate themselves.

According to the Red Cross website, someone in the United States needs blood every two seconds, and the average transfusion is three pints. A victim of a vehicle accident may need as many as 100 pints of blood.

Each year, the Red Cross collects some 13.6 million units of blood from almost seven million donors. They estimate that 38 percent of the U.S. population is eligible to donate blood, but less than 10 percent actually does so. Always in high demand, Type O negative blood can be given to any patient regardless of their blood type.

The donation process takes about an hour and all blood is tested for HIV, hepatitis B and C, syphilis and other infectious diseases before being given to a recipient.

Donors must be at least 17-years-old, in good general health, weigh at least 110 pounds, and have not donated in the past 56 days.

For more information on donating blood go to the Red Cross website at: https://www.redcross.org/.