By JENNY DREASLER
WISH-TV | wishtv.com
A locally-based blood center answered a request to send blood after the Texas school shooting.
Ten people were killed and 10 others were wounded Friday by a teenager with a shotgun and a revolver at a high school in the southeastern Texas city of Santa Fe.
Officials with the Indiana Blood Center got the call Friday morning that extra blood was needed to help victims of the shooting in Texas.
Workers said they originally thought the call was for a normal shipment, but quickly learned they were helping out with a crisis.
“We received a phone call from our hospital partner in Galveston, Texas. The University of Texas Medical Branch was looking for some red cells for a trauma incident happening in their community,” Wendy Mehringer, vice president of the Indiana Blood Center, said.
News reports said three people from the Texas school shooting were being treated at the facility.
The center immediately went to work, packing up a whopping 151 red blood cell units and 10 platelet units, all set to go to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
The type of blood needed most was O-negative.
“In a trauma situation, physicians don’t have time to type the patient’s blood they just need to get the blood to the patient in real time,” Mehringer said. “So, there’s not time to type, so they give them O-negative.”
Officials with the blood bank said the shipment will be put to immediate use. Depending on how bad the injuries are, one person could use multiple units of blood.
With blood constantly flying off the shelves, Mehringer said she credits recent blood donors in Indianapolis with potentially saving the life of someone hundreds of miles away.
“That’s 100 donors who came in in the last couple of days and they are going to make a difference,” Mehringer said. “Unfortunately, for the tragedy in Texas. But again, it would have been for a patient in need in Indiana had it not been there.”
This isn’t the first tragedy Indiana has been asked to help out with. Mehringer said the center sent blood down for Hurricane Harvey as well.
Mehringer says the center is always in need of red blood cell and platelet donations. To find out more information on how you can donate, click here.