Keep Bleeding Love

It has been a very long and emotional day today. In fact, it is already tomorrow. I have been asked to write a piece for our magazine, Connect, about today's session after the atrocities of last night. I am too tired now to write a separate piece for blip so I have just used what I've written. Stay safe out there. Be strong. Don't let those evil inhuman beings win. X




Keep bleeding
Keep, keep bleeding love….
 
Leona Lewis sang these words and today, Tuesday, 23rd May 2017, Manchester was bleeding love. One deluded, inhuman being committed an unthinkable act of violence that ended twenty two lives, maimed many, many more and shocked us all. Twenty two lives lost, twenty two people who were having a wonderful night at a concert, twenty two people who leave behind families and friends that are weeping and broken with grief…….but there are hundreds who have risen up to help, risen up to say we are a City that cares, we were all bleeding love today!
 
I work on the Manchester mobile team and when I woke up to the devastating news I knew that there would be a huge amount of people who would want to donate blood. I raced into Plymouth Grove to offer help in the static centre. I met up with many of my colleagues who had also felt the same, some were on annual leave, yet they couldn’t stay at home. There were cars queuing out of the centre and as I went inside the Waiting Area was filled with people. It was heart warming to see so many people desperate to do what they could to help. It was also overwhelming as we tried to accommodate so many donors.
 
Asif works at MRI and he came across the road, dodging the press who were lined up outside the hospital, to donate. He hadn’t given blood for seven years, but he told his boss he was going to donate. “Don’t be too long, “ he’d been told, his department was overwhelmed with what had happened, but he was adamant he was going to do his bit. Asif had tears in his eyes all the way through his donation and it was with blurry eyes I thanked him for giving his blood.
 
As staff arrived at the centre, some who had abandoned their annual leave, I had to leave them to it. There were two mobile teams out on session….one at Stockport and one at Denton….and I was working at Denton. Staff at The Festival Hall, Denton, said that people had been ringing in there from 8:30am that morning to see if they could go down to donate.
 
Blood stocks in Manchester were healthy today and we were prepared for the urgent need. Our instructions were to only take O neg donors as ‘walk ins’. It was good that we were in a position that we weren’t scrabbling about desperate to get blood in, but it was going to be tough to tell people we couldn’t take them. So many of us feel helpless in horrendous situations like this and there is a need to  have to do something and it can be hard to thwart that need. Fortunately, we had Jo Leeman, Donor Marketing Operations Coordinator, out with us and she was on the frontline all day.
 
We had over hundred people booked in for the day, we also had over a hundred more people who came along wanting to donate. It was heart warming to see so many people and we have urged them to register online and to book for another session as soon as they can so that if there is another such atrocity then we will be in the great position we were in today….blood being ready and available for those poor victims. Everyone understood and hopefully they have registered now.
 
An old man arrived clutching his old donation book with the certificates stuck in it, he hadn’t donated for years and was too old to start again today, but that fact that he turned up, willing to do what he could shows there are wonderful, caring people out there.
 
As I was putting a needle in a donor she told me that her friend’s daughter, aged eight, had been at the concert last night and she had shrapnel in her spine. The lady was filling up as she said that was all she knew for now and she was waiting to hear more news, we all hope that the little girl recovers.
 
When the driver arrived to pick up the blood from the afternoon session he said that every time he had stopped at traffic lights people had knocked on his van window asking where they could donate.
 
We had thirteen O neg walk in donors during the day. They know how valuable their blood is and they arrived eager to help. Ursula hasn’t given for a while, she had wanted to give and raced to the Festival Hall as soon as she could. “You just feel so helpless, don’t you,” she said, “ You want to just do something, that’s why I had to be here today.”
 
Karli was another O neg donor who couldn’t stay away and knew how needed her blood is. She hasn’t given blood before, but she knew her blood type after giving birth last year. She had been thinking of registering, but life as a new mum had taken over….today she made sure she had the time to give.
 
There are always some people who want to give and can’t for various reasons and the young man who came tonight eager to give his first blood donation was heartbroken to hear he couldn’t. “My dad’s always given and now I’m old enough I want to do it too”, he said. He had a medical condition that prevented him from giving and it was hard to turn him away, he was very upset.
 
The team worked hard today. There was an underlying sadness today, but it lifted the spirits of many as they gave their donation. As I drove home tonight the electric advertising boards along Regent Road leading to the Mancunian Way were all alight with WE HEART MANCHESTER and MANCHESTER, OUR THOUGHTS ARE WITH YOU. We all love this City and one dreadful person tried to destroy us, but today I saw so many people who will never allow that to happen.
 

So….Manchester, keep bleeding your love!