It was his second blood donation, and this time it had more of a personal meaning for Langley Township Fire Chief Jason de Roy.
”I’m doing this for my dad, who hasn’t been well recently, with health issues, and he had to have quite a few blood transfusions over the last six months,”de Roy explained.
“So I’m doing this on behalf of my dad, Paul.”
It was the second annual Sirens for Life blood donor competition between the firefighters and Langley RCMP, held in a spacious second-floor meeting room at the main fire hall in Murrayville on Tuesday, May 14.
“It’s a friendly competition between both parties to see who can donate the most blood,” de Roy told the Langley Advance Times.
“It’s such a great cause.”
It was also the second donation for Supt. Adrian Marsden, the officer in charge of the Langley RCMP, who, like de Roy, got started with the first Sirens event last year.
“I just thought it was such an opportunity for people like me that haven’t really donated before,” Marsden remarked.
“Canadian Blood Services made it so easy for us, having it right across the street [from the detachment] that I thought it was kind of a cool, fun event for us to participate in together.”
The goal of the clinic was to collect more than 95 blood donations and encourage new donors.
According to the donor agency, the event beat that target, with 118 donors attending, and 99 successful donations collected.
Eleven were were unable to donate due to various reasons such as iron deferral, travel, medical and others, an agency statement reported, calling it a “good average deferral rate.”
Among the 109 who voted, a majority, 68, decided Supt. Marsden should get hosed down again, like last year.
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