BY TAMARA BELKOV
A fleet of motorcycles rolled up to the Canadian Blood Services
clinic on Cedar St. Monday. Sleeves rolled up, the burley looking
bunch rode in from Sudbury, North Bay and Sault St. Marie to give
blood at the annual Bikers for Life blood donor drive.
Started two years ago by longtime blood donor Maurice Clement,
the director of the Sudbury chapter of the Harley Owners Group
(HOG), Bikers for Life was well represented by members of area
riding associations the Freedom Riders, Gold Wing Association, Blue
Knights, Southern Cruisers, Women on Wheels and HOG.
Daria Morley, co-ordinator at the clinic welcomed the donation
by the civic-minded bikers. “Every unit has the potential to
help save three lives, and last year the bikers gave 50 units of
blood,” Morley said.
Last year was the first time for Gold Wing Association
provincial director Steve English. The owner operator of Little
John’s sign shop in Garson, English admits he’d though about
donating blood for years, but it took the Bikers for Blood drive to
give him the final push he needed.
Fellow Gold Wing rider Bob Lalonde, a materials co-ordinator
with Inco, became a regular at the Canadian Blood Services after
9/11. “I felt it was the only thing I could do to help out,”
Lalonde said. “I kept it up. You don’t know who or when it will be
needed.”
Several of the bikers such as HOG member Chris Kemp are regular
donors.
Kemp is the vice-president of RBC Dominion Securities and has
been riding motorbikes since he was a teen. Having been a donor, no
one was more surprised than he, when four months ago he woke up in
hospital to discover he had required a transfusion to save his
life.
Still recovering from the emergency gastric surgery, Kemp will
be holding on to his latest donation for another few months.
According to Morley, any healthy person between the ages of 17 and 54 should be able to donate. She reminds would-be donors it takes an hour to complete the 10 minute procedure, due to the screening process.
