Around 95 Colorado hospitals hit by emergency blood shortage

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – Vitalant officials say they’ve entered another emergency blood shortage.

We’re down more than 25% of blood donations since May alone.,’ explained Brooke Way, communications manager for Vitalant. “In June, we were at our lowest since the winter. So, we started seeing people come in a little bit more, but now we’re back at a shortage level.”

The time between Memorial Day and Labor Day is referred to by some hospitals as “trauma season.” The beautiful weather oftentimes draws out reckless behavior that can lead to an accident and eventually a blood transfusion.

“We are in the summer months, a lot of people are taking vacation time, but these patients can not take a holiday. They can’t take a vacation from needing these life transforming transfusions of blood,” said Way. “We want to be able to get those patients in the hospital the transfusions they need when they need it. The last thing we want to do is delay that patient care. We don’t want doctors making those impossible choices of having to delay giving a patient blood.”

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