The annual GHS American Red Cross blood drive was held on Jan 27. The blood drive took place in the Aux gym and students ages 16 and up were in the gym for about an hour to complete their donations. Fifty three people actually ended up donating blood and ten students were not allowed to donate their blood.
“There are multiple reasons you could get turned down,” health instructor Mrs. Anita O’Neil said. “The heart rate being too fast, blood pressure too high from being nervous, or being too short.”
The reason donors have to be a certain height is because it is a nice way of saying that the person is not large enough to donate. They need to be a certain weight for giving blood because the average adult body has around ten pints of blood.
After all of that when the students finally got into the gym they had to do some paperwork. The students then had to wait for more tables to open up. They gave the students some snacks and drinks while they were waiting. Senior Sydney Feyerherm was one student that donated her blood that day.
“I got the fruit punch juice box, pretzels and water,” said Feyerherm. “The process before getting my blood drawn took the longest, I was probably in there for around an hour.”
According to the American Red Cross, on Tuesday, Jan 11, 2022 the American Red Cross had declared its first ever blood crisis. This is a large concern because there are still people having bad accidents, the omicron surge, cancer and many other diseases that cause people to need blood donations.
“I knew it would be going to a good cause and my blood type is A+ so I can give blood to anyone,” Feyerherm said. “My mom and my dad give blood so I thought it would be cool to try.”
In total the blood drive got 53 pints of blood which would be equal to about 8 gallons. It was a successful day for the American Red Cross blood drive.
“It’s about the same as last year, we usually have about 60-65 kids,” Mrs. O’Neil said. “We maybe get around 53 students each year to donate, and around 10 not be able to.”