Plauener has donated blood 600 times
From donor to rescued: Karsten Tietze owes his life to the DRK blood donation service North-East in Plauen. While donating blood, an aneurysm the size of a Coke can was suddenly discovered in the heart of the man from Plauen. Karsten Tietze has already donated blood around 600 times.
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On the day that was to change his life, Karsten Tietze actually only wanted to drive his son to donate blood because he had overslept. When he arrived at the blood donation center in Plauen, Tietze found out more about donating and the life-saving act.
The 61-year-old decided to donate blood for the first time without further ado. “The people here are so friendly and I see it as a way of helping others, also because I have a rather rare blood type,” Karsten Tietze remembers his early days. Since then, he has lain on the bed in the blood donation center on Röntgenstrasse hundreds of times. A regular donor has the blood values from the last donation read out to him at the follow-up appointment. This means that his blood count is more closely monitored than that of a non-donor. Blood and plasma donors are checked once a year. “At this appointment, the doctor noticed a valve noise in my heart and referred me.”
Two birthdays a year
Freshly tapped: Jürgen Jäger and Ute Stich are diligent blood donors. On the 60th anniversary of blood donation in Plauen, they sat together with other blood donors after donating. Photo: Sebastian Höfer
A short time later, an internist discovered an aneurysm in the aortic arch with a diameter as large as a can of Coke. “I then had an operation in Leipzig and have been celebrating my birthday twice a year since 2020,” says lifesaver Karsten Tietze – who works as a quality inspector at the Plauen-based company TUBETECH – describing his extraordinary story and goes on to say that he only saw his family doctor once a year for a flu vaccination, without any further examinations, and so the regular check of his blood and health status during the blood donation was an additional option and, in his case, life-saving.
60 years of blood donation in Plauen
The DRK North-East Blood Donation Service in Plauen receives around 30,000 whole blood donations annually, which corresponds to around 15,000 liters of blood. Since 1964, the Plauen Institute for Transfusion Medicine has been supplying regional hospitals, medical care centers and doctor’s offices with cellular blood products, plasma and transfusion medicine services at the location near the former Plauen City Hospital, today’s Helios Vogtland Clinic.
The Institute and the Department of Transfusion Medicine and the Zwickau Blood Donation Center employ 114 people. Three mobile blood donation teams carry out blood donation appointments in the Vogtland district, West Saxony and the Erzgebirge.
Over 15,000 liters of whole blood are donated annually at the blood donation center on Röntgenstrasse in Plauen. Photo: Sebastian Höfer
Holiday time is a time of shortage
“Due to the decline in donations in summer and during the holiday season, bottlenecks sometimes occur. It can happen that a donation is given back to a patient just a few hours after it was taken. There is usually a lead time of a few days for blood supplies so that there is sufficient availability,” says Michael Pflug, an employee of the DRK blood donation service North-East in Plauen, explaining the importance of donations. More information on the subject of blood donation is available online at https://www.blutspende-nordost.de. Donate blood and save lives!
