By: Ray Lapine, American Red Cross Volunteer

“I was sitting in the waiting room with tears rolling down my cheek trying to keep it together,” said Lacie Clark, recalling when she was at a Seattle hospital for a doctor's appointment and her Red Cross blood donor app alerted her that blood she had donated was at that very moment arriving at the same hospital where she was waiting, a hospital where she herself had received blood more than a decade earlier.

It's easy to understand her reaction when you know how important the availability of blood has been in her family's life and in her own life.

Lacie's dad had a heart attack when he was just sixteen years old. Since then, he's had several heart surgeries and multiple blood transfusions. Her dad is now in his late sixties. According to Lacie, “He is still alive, and it is because of blood donations.”

Because of her dad's experience, her whole family has been dedicated to giving blood. But Lacie says they probably won't be able to match the amount of life saving blood her dad has received over the years, saying it's “likely more blood than our family could ever give back.”

Like the other members of her family, Lacie regularly donated blood. But that ended when Lacie herself nearly lost her life on an operating table when her carotid artery was nicked by accident. Doctors immediately had to give her a lot of blood, so much that she had ports in both ankles and both arms pouring blood into her body at the same time.

Doctors confirmed that blood donations saved Lacie's life, just like they saved her dad's life.

At the time it was determined that, because of Lacie's medical issues, she should no longer donate blood. That decision was reversed in 2021 and Lacie promptly resumed donating blood. After her blood donation, she was able to track where her blood was sent via the Red Cross Blood Donor App. And that’s what brings this story back to the moment Lacie sat in a waiting room in the very same Seattle hospital where blood donations saved her life.

“I was sitting in the hospital when the blood was delivered, so I could have been feet away from somebody receiving my blood,” Lacie said. “It was definitely a moment I will never forget.”

It was many years after her near-death experience on the operating table that Lacie became involved with the Red Cross, first as a volunteer, then as a staff member and recently as the executive director for the Greater Inland Northwest Chapter of the Northwest Region.

Now her involvement with blood donation is professional as well as personal. Part of her job is supporting blood drives and bringing awareness to the importance of blood donations to the community.

“I would encourage anyone who can donate to experience it,” Lacie said. “I think that the Red Cross does a really great job at creating an environment during blood drives that is welcoming and an experience that people leave feeling uplifted and knowing that they did something good.”