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Doctors pumped more than 180 litres of blood into Chad Wiklun’s broken body in a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to save the 29-year-old potash miner’s life.

Now, just over a year after the underground accident that killed him, his partner and the mother of their two girls is launching what she hopes will become an annual blood drive in his memory.

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“It was a way I thought that I could honour Chad and help out a lot of people … It was the only thing I could think of to really make a difference,” Celina Danis said this week in an interview.

Danis said her partner’s accident and its aftermath opened her eyes to the importance of giving blood. She plans to donate for the first time next week during the Canadian Blood Services drive that bears Wiklun’s name.

“There were over 500 units of blood and blood platelets that he used … If those 500 people didn’t donate blood, we would have lost Chad a lot sooner than we did,” Danis said, referring to the rush to give blood immediately following the accident.