Students help coordinate blood drive at CCTI

One donated unit of blood can save up to three lives. Last week Carbon Career & Technical Institute health/medical students coordinated a drive which collected more than 50 units which will help numerous lives, including those of some American soldiers.

“Somebody is always going to need blood, and we can provide that through our drives,” said Karissa Nenscel, a health/medical assistant/aide student at CCTI who helped lead the drive.

Nenscel, Destiny Green and Lucy Taylor coordinated a semiannual blood drive along with Miller-Keystone Blood Center.

Students at CCTI look forward to the semiannual blood drives, so participation levels are always high. Often students want to donate as much as they can — up to and including a double unit (two pints) of blood.

“They were really upset today that we weren’t doing doubles,” Green said.

Student volunteers handled virtually every part of the blood drive other than the actual blood draws, which were performed by techs from Miller-Keystone. That helps the blood bank and their teachers.

“It’s basically all student-driven,” said health/medical assistant/aide instructor Michele Dominic. “They do all the scheduling, all the advertising. The kids do everything for the blood drives.

Students oversaw the pre-donation screening process, sat talking with their peers as they donated, and provided sugary drinks and snacks when donors were finished.

Nenscel said the hardest part of the process was managing the scheduling before the event. Before Miller-Keystone even arrived at the school, the students had to put up fliers, hand out and collect sign-up sheets, and get each student scheduled through Miller-Keystone’s website.

On the day of the event, they walk the donors through Miller-Keystone’s “iScreen” process, 57 medical questions mandated by the FDA for any person donating blood.

This is the second blood drive held by CCTI health/medical assistant/aide students this year, and they nearly doubled the 33 units collected last time. That’s even more impressive because you must be 16 years old to donate, which eliminates nearly half of students from participating.

The blood drives are often held in conjunction with the Health Occupation Students of America. This time, Nenscel, Green and Taylor coordinated the drive as part of their submission to the annual Skills USA competition. In addition to the blood drive they also held a jump rope fundraiser benefiting a charity for homeless veterans, and made a presentation to students in the SHINE program.

Carol Graves, a donor resources representative with Miller-Keystone, said the best part about the CCTI blood drive is the plethora of student volunteers. There are enough volunteers that each donor has someone to talk to during the time it takes to donate a pint of blood.

“That’s when people get the most anxious. (The students) walk them through it, talk them through it, and that’s great,” she said.

And while most of the health/medical students are planning a career in the nursing field, it’s possible that some of them could choose to become phlebotomists because of their experience helping with the blood drive.

“I feel like it serves the community the most out of all the things we do here at the school,” Nenscel said.