CA Veteran Donates A Whopping 100 Gallons Of Blood

From LifeStream: Jonathan Bechtel, Big Bear City, has parlayed a very bad decision by a friend more than 50 years ago into achieving a milestone in giving.

Tuesday, Nov. 14 at noon at LifeStream blood bank’s La Quinta Donor Center, 79-215 Corporate Centre Drive, Mr. Bechtel will reach 100 gallons in lifetime blood donations.

“I first donated blood in 1964 for a friend who was badly injured while riding his unicycle down the 405 Freeway during rush hour,” he recalled. “Not his best move.”

But it was a galvanizing point in Mr. Bechtel’s life. For about 30 years following that initial blood donation, Mr. Bechtel donated whole blood. Then, “in about 1995” he converted to donating blood via the automated process that isolates one or more blood components for collection and allows for more frequent donations.

Mr. Bechtel gives platelets, which may be donated up to 24 times per year; the commitment to doing so over the past two decades has enabled him to reach an elite circle of giving. The Tucson native becomes the 19th LifeStream donor to reach the 100-gallon plateau, but the first to make the landmark donation at LifeStream’s La Quinta location.

Mr. Bechtel, 73, is a military veteran; for three years following high school graduation he was a member of the 82nd Airborne Division, an elite airborne infantry division of the U.S. Army that specializes in parachute operations.

He modestly and wryly downplays his service.

“I learned how to exit an airplane and how to blow things up,” he said.

Mr. Bechtel and his wife, Joan, lived for a brief time on the island of Boro Boro in French Polynesia, managing a waystation for an endangered species of tropical penguin. But the mountains of San Bernardino County soon beckoned; they moved back to Big Bear.

The father of two sons, grandfather to four and great-grandfather to four, Mr.Bechtel has a simple, uncomplicated answer as to why he continues to give blood after so many years.

“If the topic ever comes up with a non-donor,” he said, “I simply point out that with an hour or two of minor inconvenience you can literally save a life. Literally save a life – think about that for a second.

“Can you possibly think of a stronger motivation?”

LifeStream is a local, nonprofit blood bank that is the exclusive provider of blood products and services to Desert Regional Medical Center, Eisenhower Medical Center and JFK Memorial Hospital.

For more information, call 800-879-4484 or visit LStream.org.

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