A line of concerned Bakersfield residents were ready to roll up their sleeves at the Houchin Blood Bank on Truxtun Avenue for those injured in the Tuesday terrorist blast.
“Ever since we opened at nine, we’ve been busy,” said Linda Kyle, director of nurses for the Houchin Blood Bank. “I would guess that we’ve already done close to a 100 (donations).”
The waiting room was close to overflowing with people lining up to offer blood relief to the victims in New York and Washington, D.C.
“I’m going to donate blood today because the first thing I saw today when I woke up was the news,” said BC student Kelsey Smith. “They were running around in the streets (in New York) asking if people are healthy and asking them to donate blood.”
The outpouring of concern from the citizens of Bakersfield has the bank swamped, but Kyle is pleased with the turnout because it will help Kern County’s storage of blood.
“This will help Kern County as well (as New York),” she said. “We won’t be able to help New York until we can take care of Kern County first and then have extra. We don’t want to shortchange our own area of responsibility. It’s one thing (donating) that almost everyone in good health can do to help.”
Donna Fish, a regular donor, agrees.
“I want to help people who need it,” she said. “If it were me I’d want someone to help me. America has got to get tough, you’re either with us or against us. We need to encourage people to do this.”
Fish brought with her Clyde Cummings, a Bakersfield resident who has never donated blood because he “is afraid of needles,” he said. But he believes donating is his civic duty as an American.
“I’m an American. It’s my duty,” Cummings said. “It’s very tragic and it happened right in our backyard. There’s only so much you can do, and what you can do go ahead and show them.”
Kyle agrees that this is something that needs to be done. “We are far away and we can’t really do anything else to help the situation back there so this is one thing that almost everyone can do. This is an effect all over the country. We all have to pull together.”