South Shields mum tells us how donated blood saved her life
Keri Anglin from Cleadon is urging more people to become blood donors
A South Tyneside mum says she is thankful for her blood donors as without them she would not be here today.
It is as NHS officials are calling for one million regular blood donors in order to maintain its blood supply.
They say that more must be done to avoid a "red alert", which means that blood supply is so low that there is a threat to public safety.
Keri Anglin needed her whole body’s worth of blood replacing five times when she suffered a massive post-birth bleed.
The 47-year-old from Cleadon gave birth to her third child at South Tyneside Hospital in December 2015 but had a placenta increta – her placenta attached itself into her muscle.
Keri needed 42 units of blood products, including 22 units of blood, 16 units of fresh frozen plasma, two units of cryoprecipitate and two units of platelets.
Keri, a teacher, of slight build and weighing just 7st 1lbs before pregnancy.
Her medical notes refer to the blood loss at 8.18 litres – but also mention an even more terrifying 12 litres.
“The porters were bringing in the blood and as they handed the blood over, the doctors were sending them straight back for more,” said Keri.
“I know they had to bring more down by motorbike from Newcastle.”
She spent two days in intensive care and would have died without the skill of the doctors and the donated blood.
“I will be eternally grateful to those blood donors, without them I wouldn’t be here to see my three children grow up.
"They would have been left without a mum and my youngest wouldn’t have even met me.”
Keri said there were no problems during pregnancy and the birth of Lucy went smoothly.
However she’d suffered a retained placenta when she gave birth to her second child and she had a bad feeling before going into hospital.
“I had a gut instinct something was going to happen and I’d said to my own mum I was going to write a letter to my children in case I didn’t pull through.”
Because the placenta didn’t come away Keri was sent to theatre to have it removed manually. It was very adherent and coming out in pieces, because the placenta had attached to her muscle there was a huge blood loss when removing it. To try and stem the blood flow, they used a water filled balloon. At this point Keri had already had 20 units of blood.
“When they tried lift my off the theatre bed onto another bed I heard a huge splash,” said Keri.
“I remember seeing the midwife’s face had a look of utter horror. Basically all the blood that had been stemmed behind the balloon came out.” At this point Keri was asked to consent to a life saving hysterectomy and was put under general anaesthetic for the emergency procedure where she received the remained of the 42 units, waking up two days later in Intensive Care.
“I was worried I wasn’t going to make it,” said Keri, who lives with partner John. “It was very surreal. They were talking to me throughout. It was quite traumatic. I was just trying to get through it and thinking of my children.”
She added: “I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who donates blood. They are lifesavers. They didn’t just give me my life, they gave my children their mummy.”