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Around thirteen years ago, my son, Mike, had a close encounter with a strong, old oak tree in the curve of a South Mississippi road. Let us say that the tree won and Mike and the newly painted van he was driving were badly mangled together. His accident happened on a well-traveled country road about fifteen minutes from a small hospital not equipped to handle severe injuries.

Mike, in a state of shock, managed to squeeze through an opening between his side window and the frame of his door. After two steps, he collapsed onto the hard ground. His right thighbone had been flawed open, his left arm was broken, and his scalp had been sliced, lying to one side of his head. With every beat of his heart, blood was gushing out. He had lost a pint of blood by the time two off-duty nurses discovered him.

Mike lost another two and a half pints of blood in the ambulance. In fact, they called him into the hospital as a DOA. By the time I made it to the hospital and walked into the operating room, the surgeons were standing in puddles of blood, bloody towels were lying on the floor and the surgery team were covered in my son's blood. He was cold and ashen. When the surgeons had managed to stitch his scalp, many liters of blood had traveled into and back out of his body. He had arrived with less than one pint of blood in his body.

Because the surgeons would not give up, and selfless people had donated blood, my son lives today. He is a miracle. I do not know the statistics, by I would have to believe that very few people have lost that amount of blood and lived to tell about it. With a complete blood transfusion, it was days before we knew if his body would accept such a large amount of donated blood.

This horrific family tragedy taught me the importance of giving blood. I had to wait ten years after having a cancerous eye tumor removed before I could donate blood. When I was finally in a position to give, I discovered I had congestive heart failure. Donating blood is not only a life-saving gift to a stranger, it can also be a means of diagnosing undiscovered health issues in the donor. By giving blood, you can actually be a part of saving someones life as well as your own. Is there any other reason more valid than these?

If Mike had had to wait for people to come to the hospital and donate blood just for him, he would most assuredly not be here today. The blood must be readily available to use in any emergency. I learned quite a lot about blood types, which ones are interchangeable and which types cannot be mixed. I also learned that someone bleeding from the scalp can make a total mess of the inside of an ambulance. The paramedic and his partner told of the difficult task of removing several pints of blood that had sprayed the entire inside compartment, including the roof of the ambulance! They had to wash the inside of the ambulance with a water hose. I discovered who true heroes were that day. They had also given some of the life-saving blood that enabled Mike to continue life.

Learn more about this author, Barbara Stanley.
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