The Charger Online School Newspaper

CDHS Spring Blood Drive With Medic Blood

Article By: Sean Rayon

Graphics By: Addilyn Boesch

Photographs By: Sean Rayon and Emily Swecker

Edited By: Jesus Rojas and Addy Pruitt

Published By: Makenna Sherrill

Every school year at Chuckey-Doak High School, students, teachers, staff, and parents have the opportunity to donate their blood with the help of Medic Regional Blood Center. Once in the fall and again in the spring. During this blood drive, trusted professionals at Medic helped everyone who participated stay hydrated and made sure everyone ate before donating blood. The staff at Medic were incredibly helpful to everyone donating blood. They were friendly, patient, and made sure each donor felt comfortable throughout the entire process. Their professionalism and care helped ease any nervousness, answering questions and guiding donors step-by-step. 

The team at Medic set up their stations in the theater room, but this year, they also had stations set up in their vans and buses. The workers at Medic made sure that everyone who wanted to give blood got the opportunity to donate. This year’s program was the fastest ever; everyone who signed up and was eligible to donate gave blood quickly and sufficiently due to the hard-working staff at Medic.

Donors got to choose between multiple options for giving blood: ALYX, whole blood, and platelets. Depending on what option you pick, you will get a different machine. The most common option is whole blood. Before the donation, the donor answers questions and gets their temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and hemoglobin checked. Then the staff at Medic rubs a special kind of sanitizer on the donor’s arm and proceeds to stick the needle in their arm; the needle feels like a tiny pinch to the donor. The entire process takes around 45 minutes; during the 45 minutes, only a third of that time is on giving blood, the rest of the time is used for taking care of the donor and making sure they are okay, and keeping them healthy.

The process between the ALYX and whole blood is not very different. Instead of the donor’s blood going into a bag, the blood goes into a machine, called ALYX, that separates the red blood cells from the other cells; the leftover cells go back into the donor, and the process keeps repeating for 30 minutes. Instead of the donation being made with platelets and plasma, the donation is made of only red cells. Finally, the last option, known as platelets, is the same process as ALYX, but the difference is that instead of taking the red cells and putting the platelets back in the donor. The machine takes the platelets only and puts the red cells back in with the other cells.

Sean Rayon (Vlogger)

Chuckey-Doak High School
365 Ripley Island Rd, Afton, TN
(423) 798-2636