GIVE BLOOD, GIVE LIFE !

Larry’s family with President Clinton in the Oval Office of the White House at the end of the 1996 Life Across America ride.

Giving Blood is the one gift which literally comes from your heart!”

My story says “thank you” to blood donors throughout the U.S., Canada and the world.

As a living blood recipient, I want to share my story in an effort to raise blood awareness and the need for a safe blood supply.

 

Each potential blood donor reading this story.... please know that you have both the power and the ability to give someone else a “second chance” at their life!

 

When blood is needed, it is needed immediately, and we must depend upon each other’s generosity. I have a testimony that … if you give blood today when someone needs it, it will then be there for you (or your loved ones) when they need it.

From my own experience as a blood recipient of 110 units of blood, I want to share my story with you in an effort to say “thank you” to all of our past, current and future blood donors.

One night while I was on my job in California, as an Oakland Police officer, I had stopped a man for speeding to give him a warning … I was then struck by a car doing 65 mph.  Needless to say, I never saw the car that hit me, and I didn’t have time to run down to the local Blood Center and ask someone to donate a pint of blood.

Within seconds I had sustained a total of 15 separate injuries, any one of which could have killed me: (chest injuries, broken back in 3 places, severe head injuries, broken right leg, both knees completely twisted out of shape, both shoulders dislocated, shattered pelvis, and massive loss of muscle tissue in legs)  And these injuries weren’t even the half of it.

As I lay there bleeding, I was unconscious and didn’t realize how little time I had left and how little blood I had to lose.

To those who believe in God, there was a “series of miracles” that happened, over which I had no control, and which literally saved my life and enabled the ambulance crew to respond and get me to the Emergency Room within 6 minutes of my accident.

Upon my arrival at the emergency room, I had already “bled out” and “stopped breathing.”  During that 1st 48 hours in the ACH/Highland hospital in Oakland, I used 45+ pints of blood and during my 3 month stay in Summit Hospital with 9 major surgeries; I used 110 pints of blood.

As you can tell, without blood that night, from blood donors just like you, I wouldn’t be here to tell my story and say “thank you” to those blood donors who give now and especially to the 110 anonymous blood donors who helped give me a “second chance” at living my life!

 

Larry J. Frederick