The Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland Blood Donor Center may have wrapped up a productive National Blood Donor Month, but Tracy Parmer, donor recruiter, Armed Services Blood Program, says the struggle to meet the military’s need for blood, plasma and platelets is never over.
“Success and failure for us is daily,” said Parmer in an interview Jan. 27. “Today, we need 12 platelets, but right now we’ve got five. I’ve got to figure out how to get the rest before 1p.m.”
As if the day-to-day stress isn’t enough, Parmer said she’s always thinking ahead.
“Tomorrow, if the hospital says we need 20 (packs of) O positives and we only have six, we’re failing,” she explained.
Even with battles like these, there’s plenty at stake for the blood donor center, which supplies the Brooke Army Medical Center and the deployment in Afghanistan, as well as the Veteran's Administration and military hospitals across the country. Any individual – military or civilian – can donate, which typically takes about 45 minutes for blood, up to 1½ hours for plasma and two hours for platelets.
Unless you are prohibited by government-enforced criteria, like visitors to the Korean DMZ or six-month inhabitants of Europe between 1980 and 1996, you can donate blood every eight weeks, plasma once a month and platelets once a week.
Senior Airman Corey Gunn, lab tech, JBSA-Lackland Blood Donor Center, has been working at the center for three years. Gunn said the center’s staff always makes sure to let donors know how important their actions are.
“We just kind of explain where the blood is going and the impact it’s going to have on people’s lives,” he said. “When people get hurt, they come to SAMMC and that’s where this blood goes.”
For just about everyone, this makes the trip a rewarding one, Gunn added.
“It’s pretty good to see that this is going to help injured vets and sick people in San Antonio,” he said.
But the work of people like Gunn and Parmer means little if they can’t get enough donors through the door. That’s why Parmer said she’s constantly pulling out all the stops to bring attention to the blood donor center.
“Newspaper articles, email, newcomers’ briefings, blood drives, points of contact, sergeants, anything, really,” Parmer explained. “Even in your office – if people ask you, ‘where are you going,’ you say ‘I’m going to donate because the hospital needs it,’ and then they decide to go with you – and now we have two donors.”
We try to piece it together but our success and our failure is a daily battle.”
Parmer said she hopes to win this battle by building a pool of regular donors on the base.
Senior Airman Evan Black, Munitions Maintenance Technician, 433rd Equipment Maintenance Squadron, is one such example, having donated more than 20 times. Though donors don’t always know where their samples will end up, Black has donated enough to have a first-hand look at how big an impact such donations can have.
“I started (donating) in Afghanistan,” he recalled. “They needed volunteers for it … one of the times we had an IED attack outside the gate, and some of those platelets I donated went to save some of those Soldiers.”
Black said potential donors might never know how close to home their donation might reach.
“One of the guys I work with, he’s had cancer,” Black explained. “So, during chemo, if he ever has internal bleeding, they actually use these platelets to help stop the bleeding – just stuff like that.”
Interested donors can call 292-8100 to schedule an appointment or find out about blood drives.