Blood Supply Low; Donations Needed

Electricity and natural gas aren’t the only things on short supply during this winter blast in the borderland. United Blood Services officials said their blood donation supply is severely depleted.

UBS canceled citywide blood drives on Wednesday and Thursday, when the snow and below-freezing temperatures crippled El Paso. Even though the offices were open, hardly anyone was stopping by to donate. Our ABC-7 crew only spotted one man rolling up his sleeve at the west El Paso office on Thursday morning.

The blood donation service said it tries to average 175 pints of donations daily to keep up with demand. Now, UBS is asking everyone to stop by its four locations in El Paso and Las Cruces and donate this weekend.

“We hope to at least be able to get what we think we were missing for Wednesday and Thursday,” said LuAnn Wieland, the marketing director for UBS. “It’d be about 300-400 pints of blood, on top of being able to get appointments and have people who’d normally come in on Fridays and Saturdays.”

Wieland said despite holding a massive blood drive last weekend, which brought in a record-breaking number of pints at nearly 1,100, that supply is almost gone. So UBS is stressing to the public that its four offices are open Friday and Saturday.

“It is our hope that we would be able to have about 300-400 donors come into our centers between Friday and Saturday,” said Wieland.

Donors can call for an appointment or walk in to the following locations:

Eastside 1338 N. Zaragoza Dr. 849-7930 Northeast 4758 Loma Del Sur Dr. 822-8438 Westside 424 S. Mesa Hills Dr. 544-5422 Las Cruces 1200 Commerce Dr. (575) 527-1322

All will be open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday.