The severe cold and winter weather the last few weeks is having a negative effect on the available blood supply for Central Indiana hospitals.
Lucy Wehking is a spokesperson for the Indiana Blood Center, and she says when the Polar Vortex and other cold weather hits the state, it has a significant impact on agencies such as hers, because people stay inside and don‘t want to take a chance of driving to a location just to give blood.
"After that first week, those first three days were tough," Wehking said. "We had to close some of our operations but thankfully by that Sunday we had restored our supply."
Wehking says they were able to get that supply back because of their loyal donor base.
"Letting everyone know about the current situation so if people could safely travel to one of our donor centers or one of our mobile blood drives that we were hosting to really come and its only an hour of someone's time."
The Indiana Blood Center makes 550 units of blood available to 60 area hospitals on a daily basis.