By Bethany Bray Patterson, American Red Cross Regional Communications Manager

Whenever Taylor Crosby donates blood, the collection bags that the Red Cross phlebotomists use look really familiar. She sees those exact same bags every day in her work as a medical laboratory technologist in the trauma center at MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C.

Crosby and her lab colleagues help manage the hospital’s blood bank to provide transfusions for patients in need – everyone from cancer patients and premature babies to trauma patients who have arrived via medevac helicopter.

MedStar is a level one trauma center, and sometimes trauma patients’ need for blood is so urgent that they are given a transfusion of whole blood, directly from the blood bag that is so familiar to Crosby as a regular blood donor.

In some cases, a patient’s entire blood volume is replaced via transfusions every 15 minutes, she said. This could be a trauma patient who has a gunshot wound or was in a major accident; a mother with a postpartum hemorrhage; an infant with a clotting disorder and other circumstances, Crosby explains.

“Blood donors are the only reason we are able to save [these patients’] lives,” she said.

Someone needs a blood transfusion in the United States every two seconds, and volunteer blood donors are the only source of blood and platelets for those in need. The American Red Cross provides roughly 40% of the nation’s blood supply and needs to collect about 12,500 blood donations every day to meet the needs of patients at about 2,500 hospitals and transfusion centers across the country.

Blood donated to the Red Cross is available to be shipped to hospitals 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Hospitals typically keep some blood units on their shelves, but may call for more at any time, such as in case of large-scale emergencies.

Crosby, a resident of Alexandria, Virginia, donates blood with the Red Cross every eight weeks because she sees firsthand how vital blood and blood components are for patients – and also the challenges hospital staff face when blood supplies run low.

“No medication or other fluid will replicate what blood can do [for a patient],” said Crosby. “We don’t have a replacement for blood. We don’t have anything else that we can give a patient … Sometimes it’s day by day and even one unit of blood can help them make it through the night. And we just can’t do it without blood donations.”

When the hospital has a blood shortage, Crosby’s colleagues call around to other hospitals and the Red Cross to ask for additional units, she said. Even a single unit of blood, the amount given by an individual blood donor, “makes a huge difference” for patients – and sometimes all the difference, she says.

Crosby wants Red Cross blood donors to know that “you, personally, have helped save someone’s life, without exaggeration.”

“I want to say ‘thank you’ to those who donate, and especially those who donate regularly. While you may not see us [hospital blood bank staff], we care so much about our patients, and we are beyond grateful. Blood donors are arguably more important to our job than we are,” she said.

Crosby began to donate blood regularly with the Red Cross three years ago, when she started working as a hospital blood banker and saw the need firsthand. Donating blood is a way to help her patients “from start to finish … a unique and special way to help my patients even further,” she said.

“Every day I go in to work to serve my patients,” she said, “and every eight weeks I donate blood to ensure that I, and blood bankers across the country, can continue that service.”

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The need for blood is constant. Blood donations to the Red Cross help ensure new moms, premature babies, cancer patients and accident victims have access to safe, lifesaving blood.

Every day, volunteer blood and platelet donors are needed across the country to help save lives. When you roll up a sleeve to donate, you help change a life.

Schedule an appointment to donate today by visiting RedCrossBlood.org.