‘Someday we’re all going to need blood’
Red Cross blood drive at Civic Center thru Friday
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NEW ULM – The Red Cross began their multiple day blood drive at New Ulm's civic center Wednesday. It will continue Thursday from 12pm-6:30pm and Friday 8am-1:30pm.
Amid a national blood shortage, Blood Program Leader Ellen Friedrich said that Minnesota and the rest of the Midwest are essential to national blood reserves.
"A lot of people in the East Coast or West Coast, they're too busy for it," she said.
Although the Midwest is a leading force behind providing blood, blood drive numbers in New Ulm are struggling.
"We have tremendous donors in this area, but they're getting older and young people aren't filling in to take the older people's spots," Friedrich said.
One of the reasons Friedrich believes the older people are not coming out is because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"Everybody was so used to sheltering in place and everybody just kind of forgot to go back to their normal routines again," she said.
This is an issue because blood does not have a long shelf life.
"It all depends on the part of it," Red Cross Collection Team Supervisor Amber Salonek said, "platelets are good for five days, red cells are good for 42, and plasma gets frozen so it's good for up to a year."
It doesn't matter whether you are a universal donor or not, all blood is needed.
"Your negatives are important," Salonek said, "but every [type] is important, we need plasma off of A-positive people because they use it for a different thing."
Dean Alfred, who has A-positive blood came in to surprise his daughter Carly Raymond who was working the drive.
"I haven't donated blood in awhile and [Carley] mentioned that she was in New Ulm so I thought I'd come and surprise her," he said.
Alfred said he has donated around 20 times in his life.
"You always hear it's a shortage and a need, Alfred said. "Someday we're all going to need blood so you hope other people are going to pay it forward."
Typically donating blood takes a half hour, but Alfred did a power red cell donation, which takes about an hour.
A power red cell donation produces two units of blood and returns other parts of the blood back into the body.
"We keep the red cells and give donors back plasma, platelets with saline solution, and then we draw twice so we get double the amount of red blood cells," Salonek said.
Salonek wanted to stress that giving blood is not scary and that it's no different from having blood drawn at the clinic.
"I always say try it once, and if you decide that it's not for you, then at least you tried it once," Salonek said.