With 502 blood donations, Memphis resident has touched 'number of lives'

Memphis resident Shaun Brennan has sat in the donor chair 502 times, donating whole blood, platelets and plasma.

He’s one of just 3% of eligible blood donors who donate annually in the United States — only 0.4% donate platelets — and few donate as often as him.

But it’s a passion for Brennan, who also advocates for others to consider becoming blood donors, sharing information online, doing interviews with the media, speaking at blood donation conferences and more.

“It’s a national and it’s a global crisis right now,” Brennan said. “It’s amazing how rewarding this endeavor has been, when I think of all the lives who I’ve touched.”

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Right now, the situation is particularly dire.

Nonprofit blood provider Vitalant is just coming off of a critical appeal. During the month of October, Vitalant reached a nationwide supply of less than two days of Type O blood on hand, said Stephanie Kizziar, communications manager for Vitalant. Type O blood is the most transfused blood type.

In the Memphis area, Vitalant doesn’t have the donors needed.

“Ideally we would love to be a self-sustaining blood community, which would mean we’d have the same amount of blood coming in that we send out, but instead we have to bring blood in from our sister sites,” Kizziar said.

This is the time of year when the American Red Cross tends to run short on blood, said Gail McGovern, CEO of the American Red Cross. That’s because people are busy with the holidays, shopping and taking time off.

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There are also numerous accidents and traumas at this time of year with many people traveling, increasing the need for blood supply, McGovern said.

“We are always asking for new donors and for our existing donors to donate more if they can,” she said. “Each donation can save up to three lives, and these are real people that won’t make it if they don't have a transfusion, and that’s why it’s so important to donate blood.”

For Brennan, donating blood began in the 1990s when a coworker mentioned he was going to donate blood on his lunch break. A week later, Brennan decided to schedule his own donation. He decided it wasn’t too bad, scheduling another donation eight weeks after that. Later, he started donating platelets and plasma.

While you can donate whole blood every eight weeks, you can donate platelets up to 24 times a year.

Donation is a way of “giving back, paying it forward,” Brennan said.

He started off life as a sickly child with childhood asthma. Between the ages of five and eight, he was at the doctor’s office over 100 times for his asthma. While he never needed blood transfusions, he received a lot of other treatment, he said.

Today, he’s willing to drive to other cities to donate, sometimes going as far as Jonesboro, Arkansas, St. Louis or Nashville.

According to the American Red Cross, every two seconds someone in the United States is in need of blood or platelets, with approximately 36,000 units of red blood cells needed every day. Nearly 7,000 units of platelets and 10,000 units of plasma are needed daily in the United States.

Blood transfusions are needed throughout the lifetime of a sickle cell patient, sometimes daily for cancer patients going through chemotherapy, and for incidents like car accident victims, who can require as many as 100 units of blood for a single victim.

The number one reason people don’t donate is fear of needles, Brennan said. He doesn’t like needles either. He never has, and he still gets antsy every time he donates and won’t look at the needle. But that hasn’t stopped him.

“If you can move past that fear and just try it, you may find it isn’t that difficult to do, maybe make a whole blood donation, maybe make another one, and if you are in the groove maybe try switching over to platelets and plasma,” Brennan said.

Having donors like Brennan means a great deal, McGovern said.

“The number of lives that Shaun has touched and saved, it’s extraordinary. He’s really remarkable that way,” she said. “There’s nothing like knowing you’ve actually saved a life when you’ve donated blood. It’s such a humanitarian thing to do and it’s such an important thing to do.”

Katherine Burgess covers county government and religion. She can be reached at katherine.burgess@commercialappeal.com, 901-529-2799 or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: With 502 blood donations, Memphis resident has touched many lives