Six donate platelets at Red Cross drive

“Obviously it’s helpful,” Drennan said, “and I get more reading done here than in my room.”

Drennan was one of six donors who participated in the University’s first platelet drive on Friday. The American Red Cross at Princeton, a Student Volunteers Council (SVC) group, sponsored the drive, which was held inside a Red Cross donation bus in the Dillon Gym parking lot from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“It’s a really good cause,” Lija Treibergs ’11 said, as she watched the movie “Martian Child” from one of the bus’ four reclining chairs. “It’s really easy to do. You just sit there, and you could potentially be saving someone’s life.”

Donors receive a brief physical examination, after which the process of donating platelets takes an hour and a half, considerably longer than a regular blood donation. In platelet donation, whole blood is filtered through a centrifuge that separates out the platelets, while the remaining components of the blood are returned to the donor.

Within five days the platelets are used for patients with cancer, burns, hemophilia and other bleeding issues, said Jen Lui, nurse manager for the American Red Cross.

“It’s only a five-day product, so if people don’t keep donating, we won’t have enough products to reach our people’s needs,” Lui explained.

Unlike the SVC’s regular blood drives, which can accommodate several hundred donors, only 12 donors can be scheduled on each platelet drive bus. Project coordinator Runqiu Cai ’11 said that six of the 10 people who signed up for the drive actually donated platelets.

“It was really difficult recruiting this time,” Cai said. “I guess people were really busy.”

The platelet drive was originally scheduled for last February, project coordinator Aditi Eleswarapu ’09 said. The donation bus broke down, however, and the event had to be postponed until this semester.

“[The] drive was less successful than we had hoped,” Eleswarapu said, noting that 12 people and two alternates had signed up for the postponed February drive.

Eleswarapu and Cai both said that despite low turnout last week, the Princeton Red Cross hopes to sponsor more platelet donations to complement the blood drives that usually take place once per semester.

“It would be nice to have [a platelet drive] in the spring, next semester, or next year, and hopefully we’ll have more participation next time,” Cai said.

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Most of the health prerequisites required for donating whole blood also apply to donating platelets, Lui said, adding that the Red Cross of Central New Jersey on Alexander Road also schedules appointments for donations throughout the year.

“We’re always in need of more blood products,” Eleswarapu said. “And since this is such a large campus, there are so many people who can donate, and it’s good to make use of that resource and get as many people donating as possible.”