(Radio Iowa) – Many Iowa businesses are still struggling to recover from last week’s double-whammy of monster snowstorms, including LifeServe Blood Center. Center spokeswoman Shay Willis says the heavy snowfalls caused the center several setbacks, which impacted perhaps thousands of patients in the 161 hospitals in Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota which LifeServe supplies with blood products.

“We have unfortunately had to cancel some of our mobile blood drives,” Willis says. “We’ve also had to either adjust or close some of our donor centers, so we have seen nearly a 1,000-unit loss, and if you really calculate that to the number of lives impacted, it’s nearly 3,000 lives.” That’s because each unit of blood donated can save up to three lives. Willis says all of the non-profit’s facilities in Iowa are open again now, but blood supplies are running critically low. She says all blood types are needed.

“That actually changes daily, but if you were to visit our website and look at our homepage, you can actually see every single day what types of blood are most in need,” Willis says. “Today, our inventory in some cases looks decent, but in other cases, not so much.” It’s been a challenging few weeks for LifeServe, as the mass shootings at Perry High School on January 4th prompted an urgent demand for extra blood at Des Moines area trauma hospitals.

LifeServe photo

“We had to use a lot of O-negative and O-positive blood and so those types of blood are typically the lowest and most critically in need,” Willis says. “I think that’s still the case today, but really I think the moral of the story is, there is always a need for a safe and stable community blood supply.”

LifeServe has 11 donor centers in Iowa: Ames, Ankeny, Des Moines (2), Fort Dodge, Marshalltown, Mason City, Pella, Sioux City, Urbandale and West Des Moines. For more information about blood donation or to schedule an appointment to donate, call 800-287-4903 or visit lifeservebloodcenter.org.

(Radio Iowa) – The Marshall County Sheriff’s Department and other first responders helped a woman give birth during last week’s blizzard. Deputy Joseph McMillen says he was concerned after getting the call because he had gotten stuck in the snow drifts trying to answer an earlier call. “This is going to be a big deal because I don’t think anyone’s going to be able to get to them in that remote part of the county,” he says. Sergeant McMillen says busting through a few snow drifts on the gravel road, the thought of walking did cross his mind. “As I’m driving westbound on 140th I start to process, okay this is going to be me walking,” he says. “So I kind of made that decision before I even got stuck if I did get stuck and once my vehicles disabled it’s I didn’t even I didn’t really think about it.”

Sergeant McMillen approached a house with the front porch light on, and it turned out to be the correct house with the woman and her husband waiting. “I could tell that she was in the advanced stages of labor based on my experience…so I kind of knew that all right this baby’s gonna come soon and I looked at Dad and I said ‘Alright dad it’s gonna be me and you nobody else is coming’,” McMillen says.

Deputy McMillen. (Marshall County Sheriff’s Dept. photo)

McMillen says dispatchers were working to get more help to the farmhouse, and the Clemmons Fire Chief used his tractor to clear a path for the ambulance. “Me and dad are down there, we’re working with mom and I see a tractor go by. and I know there’s an ambulance behind that tractor,” he says. “The feeling of relief is almost indescribable. You know that there’s an advanced level of care there. It’s no longer just Sergeant McMillan. It’s now Sergeant McMillan in whatever level of care showed up, which turns out it was a paramedic. So watching them come in the back door was they were like angels such an answer to prayer.”

He says he assisted the paramedics with the birth. Sergeant McMillen credits dispatchers for finding help, and for working with the woman and her husband before he arrived. McMillen says they are not releasing the name of the family.