SALT LAKE CITY — If it's 10 a.m. on the first or third Monday of the month, Ralph Vaughan likely will be donating blood at the University of Utah.

Vaughan, 70, has donated 1,023 units of blood — more than 127 gallons — over the past 40 years, making him one of the highest blood donors in the western United States, said Lance Bandley, spokesman for the ARUP Blood Services Center at the U.

That's enough platelets to cover 102 liver transplants or open heart surgeries, according to the center's website.

Representatives from Fresenius Kabi, an organization that creates medical devices for critically and chronically ill patients, inducted Vaughan into its national Donation Hall of Fame Monday for his contributions.

The Syracuse man's donations triple that of any other of the center's nominees, and he is the first donor from ARUP's Blood Services Center to be named to the hall of fame, Bandley said.

Vaughan began routinely donating blood in the mid-1970s at the San Diego Blood Bank's North County Coastal Donor Center in Vista, California, after one of his five daughters, Lara, was diagnosed with Stage IIB Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes.

Although he couldn't do much to help Lara's condition, Vaughan realized he could benefit other children in the hospital ward by donating blood, so he became an "unabashed shill" for blood donating, he said.

"I would urge anybody reading this newspaper to seriously consider giving blood," he said, "because they might be saving the life of their next-door neighbor."

Even after Lara's disease went into remission, Vaughan continued to give blood every 56 days, the maximum amount allowed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In the mid-1980s, medical professionals developed a new donation process called apheresis, which enabled phlebotomists to retrieve one part of the blood and feed the rest back into the donor's system.

Although apheresis takes 90 to 120 minutes compared with the seven minutes for the traditional whole-blood process, Vaughan said he switched to the method because it allows him to donate platelets 24 times a year instead of whole blood six times a year.

Vaughan's blood is high in platelets, so he can sometimes give double or triple units per trip to the donation center, he said. Bandley said this is helpful because platelets are the most in demand of the four blood components.

Three years ago Vaughan moved from San Diego to Syracuse. Vaughan chose to start donating at ARUP because, unlike some blood donation centers, the blood was kept locally.

As the sole blood donor for the Huntsman Cancer Institute, Primary Children's Hospital, University Hospital and Shriners Hospital for Children, ARUP's Blood Services Center needs 20 donors every day to maintain an adequate blood supply, Bandley said.

"I've never seen someone so driven to help save lives. I didn't know there were people so amazing out there like Ralph," he said. "We're just grateful he moved from California to Utah. He is a lifelong dedicated donor."

"I know where my priorities are," Vaughan said. "(Blood) is something that I have the ability to give that other people need."

Email: vjorgensen@deseretnews.com

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