Giving Even Though It Hurts : Patriotism, Sense of Helping Draw Flood of Blood Donors

They came in the name of patriotism, out of concern for the men and women on the edge of war in the desert of Saudi Arabia.

All day Tuesday, throngs of volunteers went to the Red Cross blood center to fill out consent forms, roll up their sleeves and donate a pint of blood.

“I’m trying to do my bit--donating blood for the troops,” explained Eddie Davis, 36, a Santa Ana law clerk and former U.S. Marine Corps corporal with a large Semper Fidelis tattoo on his left arm.

Dale Markilli, a 36-year-old warehouseman from Garden Grove, responded to a Red Cross appeal for blood for the same reason. “I think it’s going to be ugly there,” he said. “I heard (the appeal) on the radio and hey--it’s going to be another Vietnam, or worse.”

Lena Kinney, a 30-year-old police investigator from Santa Ana and first-time blood donor, was worried about friends sent to the Persian Gulf.

“In the event that there is a war, I believe there will be a lot of bloodshed,” Kinney said. “There will definitely be a need for blood. But if it ends up at Martin Luther King Hospital where there was a gang-related shooting, that’s OK. I feel like I’ve got to do something for somebody.”

Kinney and the other donors used lunch hours--or simply took one to two hours off from work--to help replenish local blood supplies that on Monday were described as “critically low” by the American Red Cross of Orange and Los Angeles counties.

Not only were supplies of the most common blood group--Type O--very low, but all other blood supplies were sharply depleted as well, Red Cross officials warned. That meant the Red Cross could not put new supplies on local hospital shelves. Also, officials said, if war broke out in the Persian Gulf, the populous Los Angeles-Orange County region would not be able to contribute any blood for those casualties.

Overall, Orange County on Tuesday had 255 pints of all blood types when 600 are considered adequate.

Shortly after the plea for blood went out over television and radio and in newspapers, Red Cross telephone lines lit up. By noon Tuesday, more than 180 people had called to make appointments. And by 4:30, 92 people had walked into the Red Cross central blood-donation center, which normally handles 50 appointments a day.

Also by 4:30 p.m., 40 people had gone to the Huntington Beach center and 65 donors had walked into the Red Cross Anaheim center. Each center usually has about 30 donors a day.

“It was frantic for a while,” said Dr. Arrell Shapiro, the Red Cross-Orange County medical director. “By this afternoon it’s down to a dull roar.”

Despite the blood shortfall, Red Cross officials say they believe that no one has been denied a transfusion. Several local hospitals maintain their own blood banks and say that they have adequate blood on hand.

For all their desire to help U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf, Tuesday’s donors had sharply divided views about the need for military action there. John A. Harris, a 40-year-old unemployed computer technician who rode his bike from Costa Mesa to the Santa Ana blood center, said that he is concerned about the men and women in the Gulf but that “I have mixed feelings about that--whether I want my blood spilled in the sand.”

Davis, the former Marine, took a different view and said he favored swift U.S. military action in the Gulf. “Saddam Hussein may be creating some new . . . empire. We might as well get it over with now” and fight him, Davis said.

And since Davis can’t participate in the fighting this time, he figured he could at least give blood.

As a nurse removed the needle and took Davis’ donor packet away, he held his tattooed arm high so that blood from the small puncture could clot. “I feel a lot better,” Davis said quietly. “I hope it helps somebody.”