Champion Blood Donor Donates More than 300 Units of Blood

By Elizabeth Storey, American Red Cross volunteer

It takes selfless dedication to donate hundreds of units of blood to save lives. Those donors are called donor champions. The American Red Cross Tennessee Region has many donors that can be called champions. One is employee Brett Crystal.  

Crystal works for the American Red Cross in Biomedical Donor Services. He knows all too well how critical blood donation is. This blood champion has donated more than 300 times over the past 20 years. His journey to blood donation began in high school when he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. 

“That diagnosis was both the best and worst moment of my life,” Crystal said. “Initially it impacted me negatively, but I quickly decided to turn it around and make it the best possible situation I could.” 

Crystal decided at that point to get involved in non-profit organizations, specifically the American Diabetes Association and the American Cancer Society, participating in fund raising activities. This continued into his college years. He regularly set up a table at his college to raise money for these organizations, and it was on one of those days that the American Red Cross set up a table nearby to recruit blood donors. Crystal had been told in high school that diabetics could not donate blood and he was not eligible. He approached the Red Cross table anyway just to ask for donations to support his fundraising efforts. 

“The volunteers there did give me a few dollars,” Crystal said. “They also explained that as a diabetic I was able to donate so I got very excited about that. I signed up to donate for the blood drive that was on the following day.” 

That was the beginning of a life-long passion and pursuit to donate blood as often as possible with the goal of breaking the world record. The current Guinness World Record holder is Australian James Harrison, who retired from donation in 2018 at 81-years-old with 1,173 blood donations spanning over 60 years.  

“As I had done with fundraising, I get competitive about things I do,” Crystal said. “I decided to get competitive with donating. I wanted to be the best donor I could be.” 

The competition and the world record breaking aren’t his only motivation for being a regular blood donor. What really drives his passion for blood donation is knowing the need is there and wanting to help in a more direct way than fundraising. 

“I fell in love with three big things about it,” Crystal said. “First, it was free. Everything I did before was asking for money to support a cause. Second, it was quick. The process takes less than an hour. Last is how direct of an impact you can have on someone’s life. Your donation could go to someone within a matter of days or weeks.”

Crystal is also a platelet and plasma donor. This donation process is different from whole blood donation and can be done as often as every week. Like most regular donors, he gives platelets and plasma every other week. He also happens to have a rare blood type, AB+, which is the universal plasma donor type. 

“My red blood cells can only go to patients with my blood type,” Crystal said. “Donating platelets and plasma is where I can have the greatest impact because my blood type can go to anyone. It worked out well that I wanted to go for a high number of donations.” 

Crystal also felt drawn to the American Red Cross and began volunteering with the organization as a Blood Donor Ambassador, helping with blood drives and welcoming donors. He eventually was hired by the Red Cross and worked in the Collections Department for several years before returning to the Donor Recruitment Office. 

Last fall he joined the Apheresis Team as the Donor Outreach Marketing Analyst. There he gets to directly interact with other regular donors, as well as anxious first-time donors. Crystal says the best way to relieve that first-time donation anxiety is to just go through the process. 

“For a lot of donors, once they’ve done it, it takes the fear away,” Crystal said. “The other big thing is to take the focus off the donation itself. For most donors, they see the needle and the blood donation itself but not what happens after that point. Think about the recipients and people who need your donation. Then donation process becomes a really small part.” 

For those who are ineligible or just can’t donate, there are plenty of other ways to contribute. Volunteering with blood donor services, recruiting or encouraging others to donate and supporting those who do donate are all crucial to blood donation activities. 

“A lot of people who support our blood drives can’t or don’t donate themselves,” Crystal said. “But they’re bringing in more people to do it in their place. That makes multiple the impact that an individual donor can make.” 

For information about becoming an American Red Cross blood donor, or to host a blood drive, visit the American Red Cross Blood Services website at RedCrossBlood.org 

Save time during donation 

Donors can also save up to 15 minutes at the blood drive by completing a RapidPass®. With RapidPass®, donors complete the pre-donation reading and health history questionnaire online, on the day of donation, from a mobile device or computer. To complete a RapidPass®, follow the instructions at RedCrossBlood.org/RapidPass or use the Red Cross Blood Donor App. 

To donate blood, individuals need to bring a blood donor card or driver’s license or two other forms of identification that are required at check-in. Individuals who are 17 years of age in most states (16 with parental consent where allowed by state law), weigh at least 110 pounds and are in generally good health may be eligible to donate blood. High school students and other donors 18 years of age and younger also must meet certain height and weight requirements 

Health insights for donors 

At a time when health information has never been more important, the Red Cross is screening all blood, platelet and plasma donations from self-identified African American donors for the sickle cell trait. This additional screening will provide Black donors with an additional health insight and help the Red Cross identify compatible blood types more quickly to help patients with sickle cell disease who require trait-negative blood. Blood transfusion is an essential treatment for those with sickle cell disease, and blood donations from individuals of the same race, ethnicity and blood type have a unique ability to help patients fighting sickle cell disease. 

Donors can expect to receive sickle cell trait screening results, if applicable, within one to two weeks through the Red Cross Blood Donor App and the online donor portal at RedCrossBlood.org.