by Alex Ruppenthal | Thursday, January 13, 2011
Jose E. Cruz removes the needle from Gray's left arm. About a minute later, he starts asking questions and giving instructions:
Do you feel dizzy or lightheaded?
Are you feeling OK?
No heavy lifting or exercises for a few hours, especially with the arm you gave blood from.
Drink plenty of fluids.
He hands Gray a sheet with a phone number to call if he starts feeling different, or if he remembers something he didn't disclose during his screening process.
When Cruz is convinced Gray is feeling fine, he sends him off to get something to eat and drink from the canteen area. Gray is done, but his blood is just at the beginning of a journey where it will meet a series of machines and careful hands and, eventually, a new body.
Step 1
Cruz uses a pliers-like tool to push the last ounces of blood from the line of tubing into the bag with Gray's blood. The bag contains an anti-clotting solution to prevent blood cells from clumping together. If they do, they cannot be transfused into a patient.
Cruz places a silver clip on the same tubing to make sure no air enters the bag. Air can carry bacteria. The possibility of bacteria entering the blood is minute, even without the clip, Roach said. "But it's something just not worth taking a chance on when somebody's life depends on what you're doing."
Step 2
Cruz then wraps a cluster of three empty bags and tubing around the blood-filled bag. The empty bags will be filled later when the blood is broken down into its separate parts: red blood cells, plasma and sometimes platelets. Cruz creates a loose loop with the tubing – he doesn't want to bundle it too tight – and places a rubber band around the bag. He does it carefully, so the tubing doesn't puncture the bag.
The bag is made by Fenwal Blood Technologies, headquartered in Lake Zurich, Illinois, and it's one of the bags approved by the FDA (specifically, a subsidiary of the FDA – the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research – which regulates blood collection).
Cruz grabs a scanner and scans a barcode on Gray's bag so it can be tracked throughout the process. He also scans the sheet of paper containing Gray's information. Four years ago, the Red Cross didn't have scanners. Workers had to hand-record a code for each bag of blood.
Before he sends the blood off, Cruz holds the bag out in front of his chest with both hands and shakes it. He turns the bag forward and backward, side to side. Not too much, though. He has to shake the blood so the cells don't clot, but he doesn't want to shake it too much and risk damaging the cells. He wants a "gentle mixture."
Sealed and scanned and shaken, the blood is ready for Cruz to hand it off to the next step of its journey.
Step 3
The blood is carried to a table, where it is separated for good from the sheet of paper with Gray's name. His blood is now identified solely by a series of numbers and letters printed on a manila tag, one that you might see hanging from an old bike at a garage sale. Everywhere the bag goes, someone makes sure the code on the bag matches the code on the tag to preserve the identity of the donor without using his or her name.
A heat-sealing machine melts the needle off the tubing. The needle is tossed into a red container with an orange "biohazard" sticker on it. The machine also melts the tubing on each end to prevent blood from spattering or dripping. The tubing, already clipped and heat-sealed, gets two more silver clips to make sure no air gets in. The blood is placed on the edge of the table, where it waits to be picked up and placed on a black pushcart.
Step 4
Enough coolers to hold drinks for an entire parking lot of tailgaters are stacked in the northwest corner of the Hearnes Center fieldhouse.
The bags of blood are packed into the coolers in a consistent pattern. A four-pound bag of ice is laid on the bottom of the cooler. On top of it goes a diaper-like sheet, blue on one side and white on another. Twelve bags of blood are placed on top of the sheet. They're laid in vertically and in three perfect rows, four bags to a row. The tubing and silver clips rest on top of the bag, so they don't puncture it. Another sheet is laid on top of the bags. Then another four-pound bag of ice. The blood can't be touching the ice, (hence the diaper sheets), or else the blood cells could get "shocked" into a frozen state.
The coolers are common red Colemans. But the Red Cross has tested them to make sure they will keep blood between 1 and 10 degrees Celsius (33.8 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit) for up to 16 hours – FDA requirements – while blood is transported to the testing site.
Step 5
Four test tubes filled with donors' blood are also packed for shipment, in white boxes lined with foam and bubble wrap.
The boxes and red Colemans are stacked on a cart and wheeled to a receiving door at the southwest corner of the fieldhouse. They're loaded into a truck or van, like Hamilton's, and they head down I-70 for St. Louis.
