By SALINA POST
When Abby Metcalf recently won a contest among Eagle Radio employees in Salina, there was no mistaking where she wanted the $1,000 prize to go: the American Red Cross.
On Monday, Metcalf, a marketing consultant for Eagle Radio in Salina, presented the $1,000 check from the Robert E. and Patricia A. Schmidt Foundation to the American Red Cross during the annual PUMP Up The Volume Salina Community Blood Drive that is sponsored by Eagle Radio and its entities: 99KG, 94.5 Prime FM, KINA, and Salina Post.
With a critical shortage in the nation's blood supply, the blood drive is more important than ever. The PUMP Up The Volume Salina Community Blood Drive continues until 7 p.m. Tuesday and from 8 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesday at Sunrise Presbyterian Church, 825 E. Beloit Avenue.
Radio listeners are challenged to donate during the three-day drive and vote for their favorite participating radio station. The winning station receives bragging rights and a traveling trophy to display for a year.
Since 2010, the Pump Up the Volume Blood Drive has raised more than 4,125 donations, according to information from the American Red Cross. This year’s goal is 234 donations.
Healthy donors are asked to make an appointment to give at this year’s Pump Up the Volume Blood Drive by using the Blood Donor App, visiting RedCrossBlood.org, calling 1-800-733-2767 or enabling the Blood Donor Skill on any Alexa Echo device.
All who donate through June 30 will receive a $5 Amazon.com gift card by email. Restrictions apply and are available at RedCrossBlood.org/SummerFullOfLife.
Why a blood shortage?
According to the American Red Cross, a rise trauma cases, organ transplants and elective surgeries requiring blood products over recent months has depleted the nation’s blood inventory. The demand for blood from hospitals with trauma centers rose by 10 percent in 2021 compared to 2019. That's more than five times the growth of demand for blood at other facilities that provide transfusions.
Additionally, hospitals are responding to an atypically high number of traumas and emergency room visits, the American Red Cross noted. Twenty to 40 percent of trauma deaths that occur after hospital admission involve massive hemorrhaging. In these dire circumstances, doctors may need hundreds of blood products, depending on the severity of the trauma, to help save a life.
Patients who deferred care during the height of the pandemic also are straining blood supplies as many now have more advanced disease progression and require more transfusions.