Blood Drive
By Silvia Padilla and Carlos Ruvalcaba
Blood Drives are very important events that can occur and participating in these services can give your donated blood the potential to save a person’s life. Donating blood can help a person to live when they in a serious emergency and are constantly losing blood. As little as a teaspoon of blood can save a infants life and there are some cases where a car crash victim may require up to 100 pints of blood to be saved. In fact with a single person’s donation of one pint of blood, their donation can save up to three people’s lives.
There was a blood drive at Animo Pat Brown on December 3 and students were allowed to donate blood if they are at least 16 year old, but they would require a parental consent and weigh at least 135. Also, if you are 17 years of age or older and weigh 110, you can donate without your parent’s permission. In order for a student of either age to donate they must be in a healthy condition. Last year’s blood drive did not allow students with tattoos to donate to the drive. This year students may donate with tattoos as long as it was made from a certified tattoo artists and the tattoos have already been healed. All students must also have their own high school identification before donating blood to prove their age. Not only students are allowed to donate blood, they can bring their family or friends to also donate blood but must meet the expectations.
There were many students willing to donate on moments notice but the question was why?
“No one really influenced me, said John Fabian, an eleventh grader in APB who volunteered to donate, “I thought it would be a good Idea”.
John is very sweet and kind hearted, he was prepared for the needles because he was “donating blood to potentially save someone’s life”. He was also not afraid because he says “I’ve already donated blood before so I’m not that nervous”
In the end, donating one pint of blood can statistically and potentially save up to three people’s lives. If APB gets involved with another Blood Drive, try thinking about donating next year and saving a life!