Hoxworth Blood Center is taking extra steps to insure it has adequate blood and platelet donations heading into the holiday weekend. It is putting out the call for donors and opening up two of its centers on July 4.
The Hoxworth Blue Ash and Ft. Mitchell locations will be open July 4 from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. Donors need to have an appointment.
Associate Public Information Officer Cara Nicolas is also encouraging donors to go to any location this week. "Our forecast is looking pretty low and we're really hoping people will take that hour out of their day and make that life-saving blood donation," she says.
Nicolas says the need increases over the summer as donors decrease. "It kind of makes sense. People are going on vacation. People are off of their regular schedules. Their kids are out of school so blood donation just really isn't top of mind."
Hoxworth needs at least 350 units of blood and 40 units of platelets a day. Nicolas says it's necessary to also have extra. One accident victim can use over 100 pints of blood.
