Man in need of blood transfusion took to social media
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Michigan (WNEM) — A critical shortage of potentially lifesaving blood in mid-Michigan forced one local man in need of a blood transfusion to plead for help on social media.
“Every two seconds, someone needs blood,” said Meghan Lehman, regional communications director with Red Cross.
Terry Blizzard is one of those people. He is battling Chronic Myeloid Leukemia and said on Sunday his doctor said he needed a blood transfusion.
“They came in my room, the doctor did, and he said the entire midland hospital has only eight units of blood, which I think is a little over a pint. And he said we can’t give you a blood transfusion because they need to save that in case there’s an emergency surgery or a bleed out,” Blizzard said.
Blizzard took to Facebook to motivate friends and family to donate blood.
“I started crying reading all this stuff. One lady says well I’m b positive. I said: doesn’t matter. There’s someone here that needs your blood,” Blizzard said.
Blood supplies are running dangerously low at a time when demand is up.
Cindy Fillmore is the laboratory director at MidMichigan Health.
“I took a look at our demand. It looks like it’s about 14% higher than it was last year,” Fillmore said.
She said it’s getting to the point where doctors have to be selective about where blood gets distributed.
“It’s very frightening when you want a certain level of blood on your shelf in case you have a trauma or several traumas in a short period of time. It’s just really, really frightening,” Fillmore said.
Fillmore said if blood supply is low, things could get very bad.
“It could get very bad. If you can’t find donors, if the blood supply is just not there, the first thing you do is have to limit elective surgeries. And that’s not something anyone wants to do,” Fillmore said.
She said right now, O Negative and O Positive are both at critically low levels.
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