DATE: Friday, July 4, 1997                  TAG: 9707020246

SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON   PAGE: 12   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MARK YOUNG, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   86 lines

AIRPORT CO-WORKERS BUSY HELPING IN THE SKIES AND ON THE GROUND

Whether you're in the air or flat on your back in the hospital, four members of Norfolk International Airport's Air Traffic Control team are working to keep you alive.

Mike Sukman is an air traffic assistant; Gary O'Toole, Marylynn Harvey and William ``Butch'' Holland are air traffic controllers. While their primary job is directing the safe comings and goings of planeloads of passengers, each of them also is involved in life-saving on a personal level. The four co-workers are blood platelet donors.

Platelets are a sticky white component of whole blood that rush to the site of a cut in the body and act as the first-aid agents of the body's healing process. Cancer patients are prime recipients of donations because chemotherapy results in the destruction of most of their platelets. Others who benefit from donations of the vital substance are hemophiliacs and those suffering from aplastic anemia and other blood diseases.

O'Toole, 39, who lives in the Thoroughgood section of Virginia Beach, said platelet donation fits in with his lifestyle. ``I just try to do it whenever I can squeeze it in. I try to be a filler. You just call and tell them who you are and if they have any cancellations, they'll get you in. They're great to work with.'' Since November 1992, when he was recruited by Sukman, O'Toole has donated 94 times.

Sukman is well-known around the Red Cross. An Air Force veteran who retired after 22 years of service, Sukman had already donated six gallons of his whole blood before he began as a platelet donor in April 1992. Since then he has helped recruit about a half-dozen of his co-workers for the program. Another regular donor, Dan Lass, transferred to Denver last year.

Donors like Sukman are rare, said apheresis technician Terri Verhulst. ``He is definitely dedicated. He helps out in recruiting, goes out on the bloodmobile, and speaks to groups.''

Verhulst said large numbers of donors from one business are unusual but not unheard of. Assistant recruiter Lyn Stoller remembered two. ``We had a group come in from the IRS who came to be tissue-typed for bone marrow transplant by doing apheresis. There was an Army man from Fort Eustis who brought in more than 30 donors. He would organize a large group from the base and bring them all over here. Then he retired. Boy, do we miss him,'' Stoller said.

As many as 200 units can be needed for the treatment of one patient. The perishable platelets, unlike whole blood, can be stored only five days.

``The need has grown tremendously,'' said Wanda Fink, supervisor of the apheresis unit. For the coming fiscal year, the Mid-Atlantic Region of the American Red Cross has contracted to provide 20,000 units of platelets, as compared to 9,000 it provided last year. ``Every year, we're having to double what we produced for the previous year. The need is extreme,'' said out-going apheresis donor recruiter, Debby Hugill.

Dawn Welles, Hugill's successor, spelled out the task in front of her, ``We need to go from having the 1,000 to 1,200 active donors we have now to having 3,000 to 4,000 donors.''

Fink said doctors greatly prefer these donations to those derived from whole blood. Each pint of donated whole blood yields only a teaspoon of platelets, she said. ``These are referred to as random platelets because they must be mixed with the donations of five to 10 donors to create the same dose that we get from one apheresis donation.'' The possibility of contamination or rejection are greatly decreased in the reduction to a single donor, Fink said.

Sukman, O'Toole and Harvey donate a unit of platelets from their blood every two weeks. Harvey has given 25 units. Holland has just gotten started. After five years, Sukman and O'Toole show no signs of slowing down.

They go the Red Cross building just off Brambleton Avenue in Norfolk. There they recline on raised couches and have a needle inserted into each arm. For the next hour and a half they lie next to a complicated-looking, blue and white machine called a COBE cell processor, while their blood passes through narrow plastic lines into the belly of the machine and back out again.

The plastic lines, which run from the needle in one arm through the $30,000 machine and back to the other arm, are new for each donor. No blood or blood product ever comes in contact with human hands or with any part of the machine.

Whole blood donation removes about the same volume of material from the donor but takes place in only 15 to 20 minutes. Apheresis occurs over 90 minutes and returns all the red and white blood cells to the body.

``About the only discomfort,'' said Sukman, ``is for about two seconds when they insert the needles. Once they're in, you just sit there and relax.'' MEMO: To donate, call 446-7728. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by VICKI CRONIS

From left, Gary O'Toole, Marylynn Harvey, Mike Sukman and William

``Butch'' Holland are regular blood platelet donors.

Gary O'Toole has donated 94 times since November 1992.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu