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Blood, From Owner To Donor

Tribune photo by CHRIS URSO

Laboratory assistant Tiffany Sawyer processes bags of donated blood at Florida Blood Services. It will then go through several steps before being ready to use.

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By MARY SHEDDEN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 27, 2008

Blood donors are hard to figure out.

They volunteer a portion of what keeps their heart beating in exchange for an intensely personal question and answer session. That's followed by a needle jab and instructions to sit still as blood drains into a mysterious collection bag decorated with bar code stickers.

At least they get cookies and a free T-shirt.

Last year, I was one of the more than 110,000 Tampa Bay area residents who rolled up a sleeve and offered up their red blood cells, platelets and plasma for Florida Blood Services - the blood bank for 37 hospitals in Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk and Manatee counties.

I do it because I'm not squeamish about needles, because I needed a blood transfusion following an accident in college, and because my late father was an avid donor.

And though I've been at both ends of the blood donation spectrum, I admit I've thought little about the in-between portion of the process. Where and what exactly happens to my blood between the give and the get?

There's an assembly line-like operation that starts as soon as couriers arrive with donations packed in the kind of Igloo coolers most of us use for carrying lunch or a six-pack to the beach. Each unit has to be drawn from a donor, separated and stored within eight hours to be viable for future recipients, says Daniel Eberts, FBS corporate communications manager. Simultaneously, additional samples from the unit head to an adjacent lab for screenings.

The purple gooey bag of whole blood gets whirled around in two different centrifuges so red blood cells, yellowy plasma and platelets separate into their own bags - all of which carry the bar code linking a donation to the volunteer who gave it. Know that cliche about how one pint of blood can save three lives? Now I know how.

Every bag of red cells, platelets and plasma heads to a special part of the lab that looks like a high school chemistry lab surrounded by supermarket freezer cases. Red cells head to the cooler for up to 42 days, where they wait to be matched with patients who have lost blood in a trauma or surgery, or have anemia. They're lined up five, six rows deep.

Plasma - which goes to organ recipients, burn victims and major trauma victims - ends up in a deep freeze for up to a year. Platelets have the shortest life span at just five days. These units, which often help cancer and bone marrow transplant patients, sit on gyrating shelves in a contraption resembling a baker's hot box.

All of this spinning, splitting, sorting and storing takes place seven days a week, Eberts says. Each of the estimated 200,000 units donated each year get bagged in triplicate, only to wait for the true test: a screening for disease, bacteria, and other contaminations.

Samples from each donated unit of blood undergo 13 different tests, 11 of which are for infectious diseases such as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis B and C. The tests and all American blood banks are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The FBS lab also conducts blood sample screenings for 40 different blood centers from Maine to Puerto Rico. Turnaround time is about 24 hours.

Anyone who has donated before knows well the bar code stickers that get slapped on the collection bag, sample vials and your donation card. They're critical inside the lab, where a computer tracks the location and determines the viability of a donation within 24 hours.

And if infections and disease show up on a screening? It's recorded and the red cells, plasma and platelets get pulled from the coolers. About 20 percent of the blood donated to Florida Blood Services gets tossed in biohazard bins, according to J.B. Gaskins, FBS vice president for donor systems.

That means blood donations face a hurdle far more intrusive than the questions asked at the Bloodmobile about tattoos and sexual partners. It also explains the roughly $280 fee a hospital pays for each unit.

"There is a cost related to making sure there is a safe and accurate blood supply for the community," Gaskins says.

I couldn't help but snicker at how much this operation reminded me of a bakery, especially the nightly requests that come in from hospitals. Forget rye and pumpernickel - here the orders are for patrons needing O positive and A negative. The orders are prepped in ice-filled boxes and hauled out to a loading dock for delivery to Lakeland, Tarpon Springs and Tampa.

It's hard to imagine, but my donations have been inside those boxes: the red cell bag packed in wet ice, frozen plasma on dry ice. I wonder if my platelets and their short lifespan ever make it out the door?

I guess only the bar code knows.

Fast Facts About Blood Donations

•Donors must be at least 16 years old, weigh 110 pounds or more and be in generally good health

•37 percent of Americans 16 and older are eligible to give; less than 10 percent do

•12 percent of donors are high school students

•Top reasons people are disqualified as donors: getting a tattoo or body piercing, having major surgery within the past year; service abroad in countries such as Iraq; pregnancy; history of hepatitis; participation in activities placing the recipient at risk for HIV or the AIDS virus.

•5 million people in the United States receive blood each year

•43,000 pints are used daily in the United States and Canada

•There are four blood cell types: A, B, AB and O. Each exists in positive and negative form. People with type O are universal donors; those with type AB are universal recipients.

Want to share your health and fitness idea? Contact me at (813) 259-7365 or mshedden@tampatrib.com.

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