By Stephanie Babyak, Red Cross volunteer

People donate blood for many reasons. However, Michael Reyes of Herndon, Virginia has a very personal reason for donating. Michael is a regular blood donor and tries to give at least three times a year. His story shows the importance of donating blood, because it’s the blood on the shelves that doctors reach for in an emergency.

In 1968, when Michael was six years old, he had a tonsillectomy, a medical procedure to remove infected tonsils. Because it was Halloween, Michael wanted to go trick-or-treating with his friends in the neighborhood. Unknowingly, Michael, in all the excitement, ripped the stitches in his throat. He began swallowing blood and developed a high fever.

Alarmed, his parents rushed him to Fort Belvoir Hospital in Virginia for treatment. However, the doctors there were unable to treat him, noting that Michael needed a trauma surgeon for the delicate surgery, and that the best trauma doctors were at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

His stomach swollen and his lips turning blue with cold from a lack of blood, there was no time to waste. His parents drove him immediately to Bethesda Naval Hospital. There, the surgeon who treated him had just returned from Vietnam where he conducted triage on wounded soldiers in the battlefield of war. In the operating room, a priest was brought in to give the young Michael last rites.

The situation was so urgent that the surgeon had to operate without anesthesia. Throughout the surgery, the hospital gave Michael continuous blood transfusions because he had lost so much blood.

Those transfusions helped get him through the surgery, recover and live to adulthood, Michael says.

“Because someone was gracious back then to donate [blood], it saved my life,” he said. Michael recuperated in Bethesda Naval Hospital for about a month, and then the young boy was able to return home.  

Michael is forever grateful to the donors who gave blood to save his life, so now, he gives back and donates at least three times a year and tries to make them Power Red donations.

“Two [donations] for the price of one,” he likes to say. A Power Red blood donation is similar to a whole blood donation, except a special machine is used to allow you to safely donate two units of red blood cells during one donation while returning your plasma and platelets to you.

This summer, record heat and extreme weather events, like Hurricanes Beryl and Debbie, have caused hundreds of lifesaving blood products to go uncollected when more donations are so desperately needed. Overall, the Red Cross national blood supply has fallen by more than 25 percent since July 1. Right now, all blood types are urgently needed to make up this emergency blood shortage.

The American Red Cross must collect enough blood every day to meet the needs of accident and burn victims, heart surgery and organ transplant patients, and those receiving treatment for leukemia, cancer or sickle cell disease. That’s why every donation is critical and why the Red Cross needs you to donate today!

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Perhaps you or a loved one benefited from a blood donation during a health emergency, like Michael Reyes did when he was a young boy.

Whatever the reason, please consider making an appointment today. Visit Redcrossblood.org or download the award-winning Red Cross Blood Donor App that makes it easy for donors to schedule and manage their donation appointments.