A blood donation call for the hospitalized president of the Ridge Volunteer Rescue Squad attracted scores of citizens to the Ridge Volunteer Fire Department in southern St. Mary’s County Thursday afternoon.
Joey Titus, president of the squad, was hospitalized last month. All of the blood that was collected during an April 23 drive has already been used during his hospital stays, first at St. Mary’s Hospital and then at Georgetown University Hospital.
“It’s our way to replenish the blood we had used,” said Jacqie Cooper, president of the Ridge VFD Auxiliary, explaining the new drive. Cooper said she was overwhelmed by the response as over 140 people had signed up for the blood donations. She added, “Several here are older people.”
Titus’ daughter, Marsha Evans, 24, said, “My father went into the hospital on April 23. The past few weeks have been very hard on the family.”
She said her father had been a volunteer for Ridge’s fire and rescue teams almost in “perpetuity” for 40 years, but a bleeding ulcer he suffered last month literally used all the pints of blood that were collected in April.
Evans said her dad was feeling weak and dizzy when he was hospitalized.
“[The amount of] blood in his body was only half of what one is supposed to normally have in the system,” Evans said, adding that doctors at Georgetown Hospital discovered her father was bleeding internally.
Among the more than 140 donors who responded to the call for blood donation was an otherwise robust Margaret Harding, in her 70s, who fainted after donating blood. Both Harding and her husband Leonard Harding, 77, have been regular blood donors for the community.
Ann Raley, wife of commissioner Daniel Raley (D, Great Mills) and an organizer of the event, attributed Harding’s fainting to the heat in the room, saying, “That’s why we do the blood collection at the [cooler] Knights of Columbus building in June and July.”
Raley said Harding was mowing the lawn in the morning, and added, “[Harding] plays softball.”
J.J. Armstrong, 52, of the Hollywood area, said he saw another middle aged man collapse some time after Harding collapsed.
“There were quite a few who fainted; the heat was bad,” Armstrong said. Armstrong was scheduled to donate blood at Mechanicsville, but opted to join a friend of Titus’ who was going to Ridge.
Janet Brundage of California had never donated blood in her life before. But she was there for Titus who had once worked with her at the Patuxent River Naval Air Station.
“Gosh, that was many years ago,” Brundage said. She responded to an email she got at her work concerning the Titus blood drive.
Kee Abell, who now lives in Mechanicsville, said he had known Titus all his life.
“He was my basketball coach when I was a kid at St. Michael’s school,” Abell said.
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