welcome back to River City live blood
donations are a constant need even more
so during the holiday season
I learned just how much a single
donation can contribute to someone's
health when I dropped in to live south
community Blood Center saving lives for
40 years here in Jacksonville we're
proud to support Children's Hospital all
Baptist Medical Center locations in the
boreal hospital and Orange Park Medical
Center while life South has been in
existence for decades they only recently
landed here in Jacksonville but they
have a connection like no other one
thing that makes us different is an all
of our blood donations stay here in the
community which is not as the case with
other blood collection agencies
community development director Karen
Patterson explains why it's so important
to keep blood here in Jacksonville
because Jackson actually has a large
need for blood donor area we're a very
large city but there's car accidents
that happen every day
and we also have two very specialized
cancer hospitals here as well
so it's really important to keep the
blood local because if it's not here
when something happens locally that
person might not get what
the process is relatively simple blood
they have come to our blood mobiles or
to our donor center here on Bay Meadows
way or the Baptist downtown hospital so
the first thing we'll do is register the
potential donor we need their driver's
license to do that just to make it track
your information in the system after
they've been registered they'll go and
have an interview and physical where if
you see if they're actually healthy
enough to donate blood
after the interview physical is complete
and the donor is feeling well enough to
donate they will sit in one of our
comfortable blue chairs we will scrub
the arm and make sure it's nice and
light clean and then we'll collect the
blood donation
so the reservation itself where you're
actually having meat on your arm
takes anywhere from five to ten minutes
at the end you'll know you'll save three
lives three lives I'm giving one
donation how does that divide it into
three whenever you donate cold blood
it's actually going to be separated in
three different parts you'd have your
red blood cells that carry oxygen around
your body you have your platelets which
help your blood clot and then you've got
the plasma which is a solution the other
components float around in actually
after you do a whole blood donation it
goes to a reference lab where a
centrifuge spins it into three different
parts your whole blood is put into red
blood cells platelets and plasma so ever
something needs to be transfused that
doctor will place an order for what the
individual patient needs so that's why
we can say one hopeful innovation saves
their lives interesting and you also
have the opportunity to make a
specialized donation we always need
platelet
platelets are critical for patients have
have certain types of cancer like
leukemia and lymphoma we have to weigh a
certain weight and you have to be a
certain type to swallow flies at this
donation and it uses an automated
machine called tree must train the
machines have a special centrifuge built
the machine or it separates your
platelets from your blood and it gives
you back your red blood cells and saline
so platelets again and period for people
that have cancer they will in five days
but you can donate platelets every two
weeks every donation is appreciated but
Karin talks about a specific blood type
that's always in need especially during
the holidays so around the holidays it's
really important for guys to take the
time and come down and and donate fly to
maintain that blood supply the one one
type they were always needing is so
negative a negative is the blood type
that can go to anyone so say there's a
bad accident or an act of violence that
patients can eat blood right away and
there will always be time to type their
blood so negative looks will give those
donors in that situation so negative
powers flies off the shelves we greatly
encourage anybody that's though negative
to take the kind of donate this holiday
season I'm Ranch Adams saving three
lives for River City live as Karen
stated one donation can save three lives
find out more information about how you
can give back in different ways by going
to their website at life south org