http://www.whnt19.com/Global/story.asp?S=1580782&nav=1VPtJuhQ Laurie Parker
12/29/03
Amber Rauschkold looks like a normal healthy teenager. However, she is mature beyond her years. At just 18 years of age, Amber has stared into the eyes of death.
"I was basically dying and someone was looking out for me and they donated blood so I could be here today," she says.
Rauschkold is alive because of two pints of blood. She now lives with an illness called Colitis -- an inflammatory bowel disease that causes internal bleeding. With heavy medication, Amber hopes her disease goes into remission - looking forward to graduation and the future ahead of her.
Doctors in the Emergency Room at Huntsville Hospital say they can't save lives like Amber's without blood. Hospitals are working with a critical shortage. They need people to donate now, so they can do their job. It means the difference between life and death.
Dr. Charmaine Ortega, an ER doctor explains, "I have literally stood there myself with somebody's heart in my hand and known that all I needed to do was get enough blood volume into this person for them to survive and we were not able to get it into their body fast enough. And that's when we have the blood. So imagine how horrible it must feel for us to be caring for people who desperately need it and it's not available," Ortega says.
It's a situation no one, doctor or patient, wants to be in. So you can make the choice now to give blood. It's a decision that may not change your life. But for people like Amber this gift from the heart definitely changed hers.