Paul Szmal: 817 now, FLX Morning. It's time for our monthly Zoom with the Red Cross. And a new guest, I think, today, Sheila Sullivan. You haven't been on with us before, have you?
Sheila Sullivan: No, I have not. Well, welcome. It's good to be here. Thank you. It's good to be here. You're with Biomedical Services. And boy, here we go again. We've been talking about blood shortages all year long. And now, one caused by all this stormy weather, not only here in the Northeast, but all over the country. So you've had quite a few drives that have been canceled or postponed recently.
Paul Szmal: We actually had to cancel 200 blood drives, resulting in the loss of 5,500 blood donations that went uncollected. So that's a big nut to crack.
Sheila Sullivan: Yes. Mother Nature, we have a lot of good news. But our one bad news is Mother Nature. Mother Nature's thrown us a nice curve. And also, the calendar. This is always kind of a difficult time anyway. We just went through the holiday period where people's minds are elsewhere. And then after that, everyone sort of just wants to regroup and stay in their jammies and sit on the couch. And that's the thing. The holidays are always a challenge for us. And we're not the first thing on everybody's mind. And we totally understand that. But unfortunately, the need for blood does not take a holiday. There's still the need there.
Paul Szmal: And January is National Blood Donor Month. And we celebrate those who do give blood and platelets and meet the needs for this patient. And especially after the busy, to your point, especially after the busy holiday season, we need all the help we can get. And to that end, the Red Cross has put together a really wonderful package with the help of the National Football League. We're in partnership with them. And anyone who comes to give in January, the 1st to the 26th, will automatically be entered for a chance to win a trip for two to the Super Bowl in New Orleans this year as a thank you for helping patients in need. And the trip includes access to pregame activities, tickets to the actual Super Bowl, round-trip airfare, hotel accommodations, and a $1,000 gift card to help them enjoy the trip.
Sheila Sullivan: Yeah, and again, that's a really good thing. That's this year's Super Bowl. That's the one coming right up.
Paul Szmal: Yes, it is. Yes, it is. RedCrossBlood.org slash Super Bowl. And I had never thought of this before. But not only does the bad weather curtail drives, it also makes it more difficult to get these blood products where they need to go.
Sheila Sullivan: Oh, it is. Mother nature can put the kibosh on everything. People can't get out. The staff can't get out to run the blood drives. The donors can't get in to donate. In some areas of the country, there were states of emergency where no one was allowed out. We even had, look here in Buffalo. Right here in upstate New York, we got nailed with a lot of snow. And there were days when our office in Buffalo, any blood drive that came out of our Buffalo office, there were no drives run that day due to the bad weather. And of course, right now, we have the wildfires going on in Southern California, one of the most populated areas in the country. And I'm sure that's causing disruptions as well.
Paul Szmal: Oh, yes. Mother nature can affect us anywhere in many, many ways. So January is Blood Donor Month. Never been a better time to make that step to donate. Maybe you haven't done it in a while, or maybe you've never done it. And there's lots of ways you can do it. 1-800-RED-CROSS is one. 1-800-733-2767. RedCrossBlood.org. And also, remind us about the Red Cross Blood Donor app.
Sheila Sullivan: The app is wonderful. I've been with Red Cross for 34 years, and I've seen us go through many, many changes in many, many phases. And the Blood Donor app is a wonderful thing. Donors can make their appointments through the app. They can do their pre-screening, parts of their pre-screening to save time in the morning of the donation. It also, they will get alerts telling them where their blood went to help. Due to privacy laws, it can't tell them who it went to, but it can tell them what hospital it went to. So they will even get something to say, hey, your blood went here to help this person. So I think the app's a wonderful thing.
Paul Szmal: I didn't know that part about it, and we've talked about it for a while. That's great. And it shows them lifetime donations, and it's a great thing. That's really neat. Remind us about how the different components of blood are used.
Sheila Sullivan: Red cells are used in emergency situations. They're used in the ERs, and they're very much in need. That's why, because they're used for trauma cases. Our platelets, platelets are used for our cancer patients and burn patients, the plasma especially for burn patients. And so each component has a need. And each blood type, once we know what blood type you are, that's the other thing. Once you go to sign up, it'll tell you what your ideal is, where it'll tell you where you can make the most difference, which I think that's also cool with the app.
Paul Szmal: Remind us the importance of type O negative blood. If you have that, really make an appointment to give.
Sheila Sullivan: My husband is O negative, and I call him my own personal blood bank. O negative can give to any other blood type. They can only receive O negative in return, but O negative can give to any blood type, which is why they're extremely important, because people who have O negative can only receive O negative, but people who are O negative, if someone comes into the ER to say it's a car accident or something severe like that, they come into the ER before there's time to type in cross-match. If this person has an internal bleed, the first thing they're gonna get are units of O negative.
Paul Szmal: You can go to redcrossblood.org and find some drives coming up. I'll mention a few here in our listing area. There's one at Canandaigua Wood Library tomorrow from noon to five. Also on the 14th, Crosswinds Church in Canandaigua from 11 to four. The fire department on the 20th from one to six o'clock. There are drives coming up in Geneva, Naples, Shortsville, Victor, Lyons, Masson, and Marion, all over our listing area. Also remind us, one of the things that you can always use are more locations. So how does somebody, if they think they have a good place to host a drive, how do they set that up?
Sheila Sullivan: That can also be done through 1-800-RED-CROSS. If they call 1-800-RED-CROSS and express their interest, that will get funneled to us, to our recruitment team, so that they can get in contact with them and help make that happen.
Paul Szmal: Now, one of the things, too, that we've talked about in the past in relation to biomedical services is the sickle cell disease. Remind us about the importance of blood for those patients.
Sheila Sullivan: Those patients have a constant need and it does not go away. We have what we call a sickle cell initiative. We have sickle cell warriors. So if that's another thing, if you think that your organization would like to host a sickle cell drive, we do identify sickle cell donors at every blood drive we have, but we have what we call sickle cell warriors and they have blood drives that are sickle cell blood drives. And if anyone has an interest in doing that, again, 1-800-RED-CROSS and they will connect you with us and we can make that happen.
Paul Szmal: Everyone who donates between January 27th and February 28th will get a $15 e-gift card to a merchant of their choice. And then remind us again about this great Super Bowl promotion.
Sheila Sullivan: The Super Bowl package, they're automatically entered for. The minute they sign up at the blood drive, they're entered for. It's two tickets for this year's Super Bowl. They get to enjoy pre-game activities at the stadium. They have tickets for the actual Super Bowl, round trip airfare, three-night hotel accommodation, and a $1,000 gift card to help them enjoy the experience.
Paul Szmal: All right, I want to give a shout out too to Michael Tedesco who books these interviews, normally comes on with us. They've been going through some illnesses in the family there. So that's why Sheila's with us today. And we're happy to have had you with us and we hope we can whip up some interest and attendance at some of these blood drives. Thanks for being with us.
Sheila Sullivan: Oh, thank you. And you know what, somebody once told me that the number one reason people don't give it is because they were never asked. Well, I always, when I end an interview, I always say, okay, this is my personal ask. I'm asking all of you to think about it. If you haven't thought about it before, please think about it now.
Paul Szmal: All right, that sounds great. And your dog wants everyone to donate as well.
Sheila Sullivan: Yes, he does. Ha ha ha ha. I've had dogs, I've had garbage trucks pulling up. I had a blue jay in a tree one day. So that's the Zoom era and that's perfectly all right. Sheila, thanks for being with us. We really appreciate it.
Paul Szmal: Thank you. You have a wonderful day.
