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Havre area donates most blood in state

Northern students donate 61 units at Tuesday's drive

Montana State University-Northern students and Havreites filed into the Student Union Building ballroom Tuesday to add to the already successful American Red Cross Blood Drive in Havre.

Chris Quinn, the team supervisor for the blood drive, said the Northern drive always ranks high in the state in how many donors they receive.

"For the size of the school, there's a high percentage of donors there," Quinn said.

Quinn said the Northern drive is comparable to MSU in Bozeman and bigger than the University of Montana in Missoula.

"The Havre community is the largest in the state," Quinn said.

Some of the reason the Havre area has so many donors is due to Hutterites, Quinn said.

"Something like 40 percent of the draws from the Great Falls area are from Hutterites," Quinn said.

The drive at the university brought 68 students in the five hours it was operational and yielded 61 units, or pints, of blood.

Quinn said not everyone who comes in may be able to donate. The seven people who did not contribute to the final number of units yielded were screened out for one reason or another. Recent travel to countries with malaria problems, sickness and antibiotic use are a few of the reasons some people are turned away. The most common reason is low hemoglobin levels, Quinn said.

Quinn said even after the screening and blood draw, the blood is still tested in a laboratory to find any impurities.

Giving blood takes up around 45 minutes, Quinn said. Most of this times is used for screening, reading material and waiting, as the actual draw takes six to 10 minutes.

Charlotte Thompson has worked with Red Cross for four years and exclusively works with the mobile blood drives. She said half her job is traveling from drive to drive in the Lewis and Clark region, which contains Idaho, Utah and Montana. She works year-round and spends her weekends in Great Falls. She said the job does not leave much time for those with children, pets or any sort of dependant.

Thompson said Red Cross trains people from scratch, so those who may be interested in pursuing a career with them do not necessarily need medical education, though it helps.

She said the goal for Northern was 60 donors, of which nine or 10 of them she would assist personally.

Mariah Adsem, a freshman at MSU-N, gave blood for the first time in her life Tuesday at the university.

"I've seen friends do it in the military," Adsem said. "I have O-positive blood, so I figured it would be good if I did it."

Adsem said if she were to give advice to anyone who has never donated blood, but is considering it, she would say:

"Don't be nervous; if you're scared of needles, just look away. It's not as bad as everybody says."

There will be four more blood drives in the Havre area:

• Monday, at St. Jude Parish Center from noon to 5 p.m.

• Tuesday, at Chinook Senior Center from 1 to 6 p.m.

• Tuesday, at Northern Montana Hospital from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

• Thursday, March 13, at Hill County Electric Hospitality Room from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

 

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