JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (WJAC) — Only three out of 100 Americans donate blood, yet every two seconds someone needs it, and for a patient in the hospital needing blood, it's everything.
“We do this effort every year, I never imagined that I would need so many units of blood to keep me alive,” said WJAC’s News director Jim Platzer.
WJAC Donor Day has new meaning for our news director this year -- Platzer looks healthy, but he's living with a chronic disease.
“It's a hereditary disease that I’ve known that I had for years, it causes cirrhosis of your liver,” Platzer explained. “So, basically what happens is the blood backs up and can't be processed by the liver.
“There's not much they can do for it, so what happens is your veins from your liver to your esophagus and your stomach get backed up and I’ve been treated for those, and I’ve taken medicine to ease the pressure. But the one day, is the day, I guess, many of them decided to pop at once.”
It was on that day in March, when his disease took a turn.
“So we're sitting at our news meeting at 3 o'clock and I thought I felt a pop in my stomach and I started getting very dizzy, very light headed and nauseous,” Platzer said. “And I came back to my office -- I was right here in the office and I just decided I was gonna get on the floor to try to use the trash can, next thing I know there are members of my news staff standing over top of me trying to bring me to consciousness, trying to call my wife, trying to call 911 and trying to keep me awake until paramedics came.
“And one of the last things I remember is a doctor in the emergency room leaning over top of me and asking me if I had any objections to a blood donation or a blood transfusions. I just said no, and that's like the last thing I remember.
“They had to rush me into the OR -- try to patch up all the veins that were gushing blood and I guess it was very serious the very first night, where the doctors weren't sure I would pull through the night because I had lost so much blood.”
But thanks to generous blood donors, he has had a strong recovery. He's out of the hospital, home with his family and back to his routine.
“You never think that could be me. I went from a regular day doing my meetings and my jobs in the newsroom, to next thing you know, I’m in a coma for weeks in an ICU unit in Pittsburgh” Platzer said. “It all started with that blood donation. The doctors had their jobs they have their technology and everything but there's not much they can do if they don't have the blood to make it work.”
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