Three days after the tragedy at the World Trade Center, Tufts students are searching for ways to help those injured in the attack. While blood donations are a simple and effective way for Americans to do their part, an unusually large number of donors over the past few days have left the Red Cross struggling to catch up.
Senior Phil McCarthy tried to contact the Red Cross yesterday, but was surprised to find its website inaccessible due to high traffic. Its 1-800 number gave an unrelenting busy signal. When he finally reached a local branch of the Red Cross, he was told to call back in a few days.
"They were completely swamped - their blood bank was at capacity they'd had so many donors," he said. "They weren't accepting any more because they had no place to put the blood." McCarthy said he knew at least ten other students who had encountered similar problems donating blood.
According to junior Matthew Alford, who worked as a donor recruiter at the Red Cross this summer, blood donation sites all over the US are being inundated with would-be donors. Many sites are receiving three to four times their usual number of volunteers and are unable to accommodate the influx. "If they usually expect 50 then they're getting 300, which they can't deal with because staff and equipment are very limited," Alford said.
Many sites are encouraging donors to wait days, even weeks before coming back. Alford, who organizes blood drives along with other members of the Leonard Carmichael Society (LCS), said that donors' blood will be as essential in the coming weeks and months as the national blood supply attempts to recapture its pre-Sept. 11 level.
"When you give blood you can only give every 56 days, which is about eight weeks. If we all give now then there won't be blood available in the future," Alford said. "Then they would be hurting in three weeks when they need it just as much."
Alford said the effects of Tuesday's catastrophe will be felt in the national blood supply until at least the end of the calendar year. "This will be a long process, the people who survived will continue to need blood. The Red Cross is encouraging students to spread out and give consistently and continually over the next few months," he said. Blood has a relatively short shelf life so experts say it will be essential to continue giving a consistent supply in the coming months.
Giving blood generally takes an hour, but this week, it has taken donors several hours to navigate the long lines. Red Cross CEO and Director Bernadine Healy said she was touched by the response. On a recent Larry King Live interview, Healy noted that in response to the genuine apologies made by Red Cross employees for the long wait, donors have simply responded: "We want to be here."
Tufts students are among those waiting in line. After word of the attacks sperad on Tuesday, students rushed to Mass General Hospital only to be met by long lines and instructed to return later in the day. Yesterday, LCS blood drive directors Dan Keesing and Iris Gelbort, along with Alford, sent an e-mail to the University community explaining the extraordinary situation. The three made a special effort to contact the Red Cross to coordinate a University-wide blood drive, only to discover that the Red Cross had advised students to hold off for a while. The blood drive is scheduled for Oct. 22-24.
Red Cross centers nationwide have been inundated with donors. Across the country, blood drive sites have been flooded with potential donors willing to wait in line for hours to help the cause. Additional medical professionals have volunteered to staff the Red Cross locations and have been quickly trained as phlebotomists (blood collectors), based on their training in obtaining blood samples.
The public reaction has not been without its inspiring stories. At American Red Cross headquarters, over 100 potential donors opted to return to donate blood, even when informed that there was a five to six-day waiting period.
A visitor from Kosovo spent hours combing Washington, DC for a Red Cross center where he could donate blood, hoping to thank the Red Cross for its assistance in his homeland.
According to Dr. Christopher Stowell, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital blood donor center, the blood supply in New York and Washington, DC is sufficient to treat the survivors of Tuesday's tragedy.
