TBI holds emergency blood drives

WICHITA FALLS, Texas (KAUZ) - The Texas and Oklahoma Blood Institute held pop-up blood drives at several locations on Saturday, including the Sikes Senter Mall in Wichita Falls.

The recent winter storms have caused a blood supply shortage at the TBI by causing it to miss out on thousands of potential donors from canceled blood drives.

“We wound up losing over a thousand donors because of high schools, colleges, technology centers canceling their blood drives,” TBI Recruitment Manager Jennifer Risinger said. “Plus other places like churches that were scheduled to go, they cancelled their services as well, so we lost thousands of people that we were expecting to donate.”

The TBI currently has a one-day supply of blood, while they typically want to have a three-to-five day supply.

“If there was a big accident or a big tragedy that happened, a mass shooting or a large car accident that could use hundreds of units of blood by itself, which could put us in a bind if we have a lot of patients in the hospitals as well that are using blood,” said Risinger.

Copyright 2023 KAUZ. All rights reserved.