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Blood Donors Saved My Life

4 min read
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Stephanie Sylvester - 1.jpg
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Stephanie Sylvester - 2.jpg

Stephanie never thought she would have to rely on complete strangers to save her life. But that’s exactly what happened when she unexpectedly developed an Amniotic Fluid Embolism — a life-threatening condition — during the birth of her son.

“While undergoing an emergency c-section, I went into cardiac arrest for a full 10 minutes,” Stephanie explained. “After that, I started severely bleeding out. My lungs collapsed, and my organs began to shut down.”

Stephanie’s medical team performed several emergency surgeries in an attempt to stop the bleeding. In a worst-case scenario, the hospital ran out of blood and had to transfer an additional supply from another hospital, a process that took precious hours. During the next month, she received a total of 164 units of blood. To put this in perspective, the average person has about 10 units of blood in their body.

This terrifying story has a happy ending. Thanks to the skill and dedication of her medical team combined with the availability of donated blood, Stephanie and her son survived and are now in good health. She sums up she experience, “Blood donors saved my life. Regardless of the number of surgeries I had, if it wasn’t for the ready and available blood, I would not be here today. Donating blood is truly the easiest way to help save lives.”

If you are healthy and eligible, please consider giving blood through Vitalant.

The majority of people in the US are eligible to donate blood, but only 3% actually do. As a result, there is critical blood shortage right now. Please schedule an appointment to donate by visiting vitalant.org or calling 877-25-VITAL     (877-258-4825).

When you donate blood through Vitalant, it most likely helps a patient right here in our community. Vitalant is the blood provider for a number of hospitals in the South Hills and Washington County, including AHN Brentwood, AHN Canonsburg Hospital, AHN Jefferson Hospital, St. Clair Health, Washington Health System, as well as all other AHN and UPMC hospitals in the greater Pittsburgh area. To care for their patients, these hospitals require about 600 blood donations every day. Prior to the pandemic, our community donated only about half this amount of blood, forcing Vitalant to import blood from other cities. But today, donations are even lower and only about a third of the blood these hospitals need is collected locally.

Our country is experiencing a shortage of blood donors

Why is this happening? The number of people donating blood has been declining for years, but COVID-19 and its shelter-inplace policies dealt a devastating blow. Even though the pandemic emergency has officially ended, a significant number of blood donors have not come back. This may be because many businesses, schools and places of worship that used to host on-site blood drives have not resumed operating in-person.

At the same time, Vitalant’s blood donation centers have also experienced a decline. In contrast, hospitals’ demand for blood is back at pre-pandemic levels, creating a serious problem which could eventually lead to a public health crisis.

Many convenient places to donate blood

Vitalant makes it convenient to donate blood, offering 10 comfortable blood donation centers throughout the area, as well as daily community blood drives. The South Hills donation center, located in the Manor Building at 4701 Baptist Road, is open six days a week.

Vitalant also offers regularly scheduled community blood drives at the following locations:

  • Cameron Wellness Center in Washington the second and fourth Wednesday of each month
  • Center Presbyterian Church in McMurray the first and third Monday and last Saturday of each month
  • Hampton Inn in Bridgeville on the second Tuesday of each month

You can have a positive impact on our community by giving blood. Please schedule your appointment at vitalant.org or call 877-25-VITAL (877-258-4825). On behalf of the patients whose lives you’ll help save, thank you.

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