Blood donors save mother's life

Maureen Scanlon’s 11th child, Joseph, was born prematurely. It was a very difficult delivery. Maureen and Baby Joe both needed blood transfusions, more than 140 units all together. 

Five hours into the fight for Maureen’s life, doctors told her husband Jim that Maureen wasn’t going to make it. He was allowed into the operating room to say goodbye where he saw one machine pumping blood into his wife, another recycling the blood doctors were suctioning out of her. Miraculously, Maureen stabilized and after about 10 days in the hospital she returned home to her new baby and other children.

Maureen doesn't remember much about the night that her youngest child was born. She knows, however, that she had a condition called placenta accreta, which caused severe hemorrhaging, had no palpable blood pressure for nearly three hours, could receive little anesthesia and that volunteer blood donors were instrumental in saving her life.  “I feel a big responsibility to make use of the gift,” Maureen says.