Packman, 74, of the Loop, initially started donating blood in the early 1990s, in a procedure that usually takes less than 30 minutes. He remembers a phlebotomist — a person trained to draw blood — commented he had “big veins” and explained how he could become a platelet donor. His blood is taken from one of his arms and run through a machine that pulls out the platelets, and then the blood is returned to his body, Packman said, as he held onto a small stress ball decorated to look like a soccer ball.