DENVER — There's an emergency shortage of Type O blood across the nation, according to the nonprofit blood services provider Vitalant.
A 30% decrease in blood donations over the Fourth of July holiday week led to an 18-month low in Type O blood, which is the universal blood type.
The drop in donations resulted in around 7,500 fewer donations than necessary across the nation, after approximately 8,000 fewer donations than were needed in June. In Colorado, that breaks down to 700 units of blood not donated during the holiday week.
Vitalant reports that around 46% of the population has Type O blood.
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Kristin Belmonte has been a blood recipient twice in her life. The first time was in 2003 while pregnant with her second child.
“We were pretty excited because with my firstborn, we had to be induced. So we were excited that we were going into labor naturally. And unfortunately, that was the only kind of fun part about the whole experience," Belmonte explained. “Within five minutes, I started having a seizure and hemorrhaging in our bedroom. And so my husband called 911, and the ambulance came and brought me to the hospital, and I ended up suffering from a very rare pregnancy complication called an amniotic fluid embolism.”
Belmonte needed 26 units of blood to save her life that day.
In 2012, when she was pregnant with twins, she had another complication.
"I had a complication called twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome halfway through the pregnancy. At 20 weeks, I ended up losing one of the babies," said Belmonte. “I ended up caring for another 10 weeks both my deceased child and my living child. And during that delivery, I went into DIC, disseminated intravascular coagulation, which is a complication that causes your body to lose the ability to clot, and I ended up needing another 16 units of blood to save my life.”
She shares her story in hopes of encouraging others to donate blood.
“I would hate to have a situation where a doctor would have to make a choice on, you know, which patient deserves the blood more," said Belmonte.
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For Tara Burns, the shortage of Type O blood comes at an interesting time.
“It was actually 13 years ago today that I was pregnant with my son, Beckett, and went into labor early, was rushed to the emergency room, and they had told me that he had passed during delivery," Burns said. "[I] basically hemorrhaged during that time and was in life-saving surgery for nine and a half hours and received 29 blood transfusions.”
Burns said she takes time to honor the 29 people who saved her life through blood drives.
“It feels today like a full circle moment. So my hope is that others will see my story or see the need and be encouraged to go and donate," said Burns.
To encourage individuals to donate, Vitalant is automatically entering anyone who donates through July 27 into a raffle to win up to $30,000 meant for the purchase of a new car. Appointments to donate blood can be made online.
