Disaster relief agencies said on Tuesday they were rushing blood supplies to New York City and Washington as Americans jammed donation centers to help an untold number of victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The American Red Cross, which collects about half of the country's blood supply, said it has 60,000 units at collection centers in various East Coast cities ready to ship to hospitals in New York the Washington area.
"We're working with the military in New York and New Jersey so we can get the blood in the appropriate hospitals," Red Cross Vice President Jerry Squires said in an interview. "We stand ready to ship more to those areas if they are needed."
By Tuesday evening, the Red Cross said 3,500 pints of blood and 40,000 pints of albumin, a blood plasma protein used to treat burn victims, had been shipped to New York City.
With rail and auto traffic into Manhattan halted and all US commercial air traffic grounded on Tuesday, shipping the supplies to their destinations would be difficult if not impossible without help from the military.
Officials said the extent of the need for blood was still not known late on Tuesday.
At least 40 people were taken to Washington area hospitals after the Pentagon attack, while New York hospitals reported having received 744 by early evening with another 1,500 treated at a makeshift field hospital across the Hudson River in New Jersey. With more than 40,000 people working in the World Trade Center, the number of dead and injured was expected to grow.
The New York Blood Center announced a blood emergency for the metropolitan area. The Bush administration and New York Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton, both Democrats, urged donors to come forward.
"Americans all over are calling up and asking what they can do," said Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. "The best thing they can do is respond to this great call by volunteering to give blood."
"We are desperately short of blood," Schumer told a news conference. "We need doctors who can contact the authorities if they live within a day of New York. We are short of doctors."
The National Association of Community Blood Centers, which supplies 70 percent of the blood in New York, said it sent about 15,000 pints to the city immediately after the attacks and is working with the military to ship more.
"Some hospitals are running out of blood," a spokeswoman for the association said. "We need people to donate blood in Washington, New York and northern New Jersey."
"There are a lot of burn victims," she added. "They'll need platelets, plasma and red blood cells. That's why it's so important for people to give blood."
To avoid chaos and overcrowding at blood donation centers, Red Cross officials urged potential donors to call the toll-free number 800-GIVELIFE to schedule appointments.
"There are people lining up at our blood centers all across the United States, all the way out to Los Angeles," said Squires. "Over the next week or two we're going to need donors to continue to come in to replenish those inventories."
Responding to the emergency, good Samaritans across the country lined up at donation centers.
"We have been overwhelmed with phone calls from people wanting to donate blood," a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Red Cross told Reuters. "We are telling people to call us back on Thursday."
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