BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
The annual Battle of the Badges blood drive with the Waco Police and Fire Departments is underway, and they're going head-to-head for donation dominance.
For every blood pack drawn, Carter Blood Care says three adults and six infant lives are saved.
This happened to be the case for detective Aaron Whelchel with the Waco Police Department.
"You see real fast just how fast and as cliche as it sounds just how life saving it is for people to take time out of their day to come out and donate," he said.
Back in July 2015, Whelchel's life got turned upside down when his then seven-year-old son was run over by a car backing out of a driveway.
"Literally within 10 minutes or 15 minutes he went from pale as a ghost, lethargic, not awake," Whelchel said.
His son was rushed to the hospital and had to be treated with the same blood transfusions gathered in these types of blood drives.
"But when it's our personal lives and something happens and when my son was brought into the ER I then look down on him and he looks up at me he's crying, and there's nothing I can do," Whelchel said.
Thanks to someone's donation, his son was saved.
"If they hadn't done that, where would we be? How would son have recovered if hadn't been for great doctors, nurse rehabs but also those blood transfusions"," Whelchel said.
Ever since then, the detective donates blood any chance he gets.
"We still get to celebrate all these milestones like him starting high school all because somebody else, who we don't know did for us," Whelchel said.
For more information on times and locations click here.
