Red Cross Blood Donation

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – Imagine following an injured loved one into the emergency room and being told they couldn’t be saved because of a shortage of blood.

East Central Ohio Chapter of the American Red Cross Executive Director Rod Cook discussed how vital blood donation is, as well as how easy it can be to donate.

“Each blood donation is one pint,” Cook said. “And that one pint of blood goes to a lab and is broken down into three different products. So what you’re doing can affect three different lives. First there is plasma, there’s red blood cells and then there’s something called platelets. And something that a lot of people don’t realize is that platelets is crucial in different types of cancer treatment.”

Cook noted that there’s always a need for blood platelets because they  only have a shelf life of five days.

The Red Cross encourages blood donors to make an appointment prior to arriving, so that the preliminary information can already be submitted, which will speed up the process at the donation site. 

“If you have a smartphone, just go to your app store and download the blood donor app,” Cook said. “This is free of charge. You can look up blood drives near you, sign up to donate. But besides that, you can also go to redcrossblood.org to register or you can call 1-800-RED-CROSS to sign up.”

March is recognized nationally as Red Cross Month and the Red Cross is always looking for blood donors as well as volunteers.