Ahead of World Blood Donor Day today, Taiwan Blood Services Foundation chairman Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) yesterday announced the theme of this year’s blood-donating campaign as “Saving a mother’s life with safe blood,” as he called on members of the public to “roll up their sleeves” and visit local blood donation stations.
At a press conference in Taipei yesterday, Lin Hui-ching (林惠菁), a single mother of a daughter and a beneficiary of donated blood, told her story.
Lin said she donated blood occasionally when she was in college, but she never thought that one day a stranger’s blood would save her life.
Reminiscing on the day 20 years ago when her daughter was born, she said she was driving a taxi to get money together.
It just so happened that it was a day off for soldiers at a military base in Greater Kaoshiung, which was close to the area where she operated her taxi.
She waited in a line outside the camp when four soldiers heading for the local train station got into her cab.
“What would you do if you start feeling labor pains?” they asked her after seeing her belly.
“If so, you’ll just have to drive me to Kaoshiung Chang Gung Hospital,” she replied.
As they arrived at the station, Lin felt an acute pain in her belly.
The soldiers knew it was an emergency and moved her to the back seat. One of them got into the driver’s seat and sped to the hospital. From there she remembers nothing, Lin said.
It was not until the next day, when she woke up and saw one of the soldiers at her bedside, taking care of her, that she realized her passengers had saved her life, Lin said.
It turned out that she had a severe hemorrhage while giving birth and the soldiers even called their fellow servicemen to rush to the hospital to donate blood to save her life.
Twenty years have passed and she still cannot thank her saviors enough, Lin said.
“To this day I tell my daughter that she owes her life to four soldiers,” Lin said, adding that ever since that incident, she never hesitates to donate blood whenever she sees a blood donation station.
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