Alabama FBI agent wants to match dad’s blood donation

DOTHAN, Ala. (AP) — Susan Hanson has donated 11 gallons of blood.
At the age of 17 she donated her first pint of blood.
One day she hopes to catch up with her father, Donald Hanson, who donated more than 13 gallons of blood through his life until he passed away a few years ago.
“I was inspired by my dad. When he was in Korea he literally watched his blood save another man’s life,” Hanson said.
Hanson’s father later became a regular blood donor and organizer of blood drives after returning home from serving in the military. Her father passed away in 1995. But he’d already donated 12 to 13 gallons of his blood during his lifetime.
“I told him I’ll catch him some day. I am getting close,” Hanson said. “He was thrilled that I had that goal in mind. Anybody that had that goal in mind is good because it saves lives.”
Hanson has donated blood all her life. She hasn’t missed an opportunity with the exception of a few times during her service in the U.S. Army.
“As soon as I was old enough I started donating,” she said.
She served seven years in the U.S. Army, and has served over 20 years as an agent with the FBI. Hanson currently serves as an agent out of the Dothan office of the FBI.
Hanson said her job had her working in Montgomery for four months last summer, but she came home to Dothan to donate blood at the Life South Community Blood Centers every 56 days.
“I keep track of the 56 days in my mind, and I try to get in to donate as close to then as possible,” Hanson said.
Hanson said it usually only takes her around 45 minutes to donate a pint of blood when she comes to the donor center located on Ross Clark Circle in Dothan.
“The center is very close to work and home so normally I try to plan my day around coming here to donate. I can usually do it around my lunch hour,” she said. “The FBI is also very supportive of employees donating blood. They say it’s great community service.”
Candice Jordan, a supervisor at the Dothan area Life South Community Blood Centers, said one pint of blood donated can save up to three lives. She said a pint of whole blood donated is typically broken up into three parts — plasma, platelets and red blood cells.
Jordan encouraged people to become regular donors, and not just wait until there’s tragedy and an emergency or critical need for more blood. She said a trauma patient at a hospital could need several pints of whole blood, which includes all three components.
“Each (donation) kit we use is brand new and when we’re finished we throw it away,” Jordan said.
Jordan also said once people donate blood they can learn their blood type, which is helpful knowledge in the case of an emergency. Typically it only takes people 30 to 45 minutes to donate blood, which includes a questionnaire during registration.
Hanson said she’s never liked needles, particularly as a youth. She recalled her father holding her hand when she first started donating blood as a teenager.
“I don’t like needles. I always look away, and it’s over in an instant,” she said. “It’s a very, very little thing compared to the potential impact it can have on somebody else’s life. It doesn’t cost me anything or hurt me to donate and it has the potential to do a lot of good.”
Hanson said she hopes to continue donating blood the rest of her life.
“It was something very special I shared with my dad,” she said. “Once I reach 13 gallons I absolutely will not stop donating there. It is a life-long commitment to try and help save lives and to do your part for the community. It’s not just me. It’s a legacy he’s left on the world.”
Blood isn’t the only thing Hanson has donated from her body.
Hanson said for whatever reason she opened a work email that wasn’t directly addressed to her. But what she received was an email sent to everyone at the office seeking help from a fellow agent who needed a kidney transplant.
“I believe it was a God thing,” she said as to why she opened and read that email.
She usually didn’t look at emails not directly addressed to her. But she looked at this one more closely, and thought maybe she could help. She noticed her A+ blood type matched the fellow agent’s blood type. So she went and got tested to see if she could be any more help.
“I guess I was as perfect of a match as possible,” she later discovered.
Hanson said she received the email in June 2007, and she donated her kidney to the other agent two months later in August 2007.
“It was really easy. Now, it’s only three little incisions,” she recalled. “It’s really cool how God gives you a place for a third kidney.”
Hanson said the doctors decided to leave the agent’s bad kidney inside his body. Nearly 10 years later the agent is doing well, and the two have developed a close friendship. She now wears a necklace given to her by the agent with a small kidney on it.
“We call each other our other half,” Hanson said. “There’s nothing romantic there. Never has been. We’re just really good friends.”
Hanson said she believes it was just a “God” thing for her to go through the testing and surgery to donate her kidney to the FBI agent.
“I’m not a very religious person, but I have a very strong faith in God,” she said. “I felt this is what God would have me do, and he’d take me through it.”
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Information from: The Dothan Eagle, http://www.dothaneagle.com