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Covering Dallas, Monmouth, Independence, Falls City and surrounding areas since 1868
Dallas resident Bill George does a little of everything in his role as a volunteer for the American Red Cross.
DALLAS -- When Bill George is doing his job as an emergency blood courier for regional hospitals, he's seldom informed what spurred his trip in the first place -- be it a car accident or a surgery.
"They'll either tell me they need it now or as soon as I can get it there," George said. "That makes a difference on how you approach it.
"If it turns out there's somebody laying on a table bleeding to death, you need to get there ASAP," he continued, admitting, "at times I haven't abided by the speed limit."
The 67-year-old Dallas resident is a volunteer for the Willamette Chapter of the American Red Cross. As his peers describe, George does a little of everything -- from helping maintain the organization's fleet to acting as a disaster responder for fires.
A key duty, however, has been as an emergency blood shuttle driver, which entails being on call for 24 hours a day, several days a month.
"Bill knows when his pager rings, he's helping to save somebody," said Margaret Sanner, a Red Cross spokeswoman. "When he does the service, there's a life on the line at the moment and he's passionate about it."
A Los Angeles native, George has lived around the United States and the United Kingdom because of his job as a software engineering manager for Lockheed Martin.
George, formerly a motorcycle safety instructor, and his wife moved to Dallas in 2005. He got involved with the Red Cross after seeing a woman get hit by a car in the local Walmart parking lot almost two years ago.
"I basically felt inadequate right then," George recalled. "I wasn't (first-aid) certified to give assistance to her ... other than to stand there and wait."
George and three other Willamette Red Cross drivers transport blood, platelets and plasma from the organization's blood bank at Salem Hospital to care facilities between Portland and Corvallis during emergencies.
"They will call you and don't necessarily tell you what you'll be carrying," he said. "They just say, 'we need it to go to a hospital.'"
Most of the time trips don't tend to occur "during business hours," you just drop what you're doing and go, George said. Because he has no children living with him now, he often volunteers to be on-call during holidays. That includes a rush delivery of blood this past Christmas.
George said his most memorable transport was one of his first. He had been called out at 3 a.m. to run blood to Corvallis, with his wife as his copilot.
"We stopped at McDonald's to get a sandwich before we got back to Dallas," he said. "Then I was called about needing to drive a sample to Portland before 8 a.m.
"We put 210 miles on the car before that time."
George said he doesn't follow up on calls to find out what happened after a delivery.
"But I generally get a feeling from the people who receive the blood that we got it there on time," he said. "And I'm happy when I get that reaction."
Sadly for the Willamette Red Cross, George will only be a fixture there until May, when he and his wife move near Perth in Scotland.
George said he hates leaving the organization behind, but adds with a smile "I hope that I'll be able to volunteer for the Red Cross in Scotland."
President Barack Obama recently signed a proclamation declaring March as "Red Cross Month," to recognize the importance of the organization across the United States.
The Willamette Red Cross is currently in need of volunteers to serve as emergency blood shuttle drivers, disaster team captains and to work at blood drives. For more information: www.redcross-salem.org or 503-585-5414.
