The task of providing life-saving blood transfusions has always involved the added complication of matching each recipient's blood type and RH factor with a compatible sample of donated blood. Now, due to the ever-growing political divide in the United States, blood banks are being forced to consider an additional variable as patients are refusing to accept blood that might be "contaminated" by a political ideology different than their own.
United Blood Services spokesperson, Julie Carver, explained the situation like this, "In these time-critical, life-saving situations, we could no longer expect our technicians to get in a political discussion with the victim's family. People just don't believe us when we tell them that a blood transfusion can't turn little Johnny into a liberal snowflake or gun-toting NRA member."
Bennington College professor and father of three, Marshall Ferguson, is happy to see this extra precaution being taken. "It's good to know that if something awful were to happen to one of my children, I don't have to decide between risking their life and risking that they become a Republican."
On the other side of the spectrum, staunch Trump supporter, Darren Michaels, whose 11-year-old son recently required a transfusion after a firearm accident, explained his position like this, "Look, we needed blood that was going to make my son great again. And I'm sorry, that was just not going to happen with the blood from someone who voted for Hillary Clinton."
The irony of the situation hasn't been lost on veteran emergency medical technician, Dino Pastore, who lives in Westbury, Connecticut, where the political chasm between the local population and students at nearby Middlebury College is particularly severe. He told us how he is handling the dual-blood issue, "If people make a big deal about it, when I'm done giving 'em the blood, I fake like I accidentally mixed up the anti-Trump stuff with the pro-Trump stuff. They don't always think it's funny, but in my head I'm like, 'Hey, I just saved your life. Get over it.'"
