Maggie Robertson
Maggie Robertson is a regular blood donor with Hoxworth Blood Center. But, she admits she wasn’t always a dedicated blood donor. It took a violent event at her workplace that got her to act and help her community through blood donation. But that’s not all. Maggie has also received many blood transfusions throughout her life. Read more about this remarkable story of resiliency, dedication and in her words “putting good back in the world.”
Just another Thursday morning
On September 6, 2018, Maggie Robertson remembers going to work at Fifth Third Bank on Fountain Square in Cincinnati like she would any other day. Maggie was hungry and decided to grab a snack from the lobby of the office building. She took the elevators down from her office on the 20th floor and was shocked at what she saw.
“When the elevator opened it was chaos. When they say the air is electric, you could feel confusion and fear in the air.”
Maggie didn’t know it at the time, but a gunman had opened fire killing three people and injuring two others.
“I immediately saw one of the victims and the police were already on scene. I stepped back into the elevator but was not in the proper elevator to go to my floor.”
Maggie ended up on the second floor. She went up and down the halls telling people to stay in their offices and not to go to the lobby. She was in shock and couldn’t wrap her head around what was happening in her own workplace.
A co-worker fights for her life
Later in the day, Maggie learned one of her co-workers, Whitney Austin was a victim of the shooting. Whitney was shot 12 times. Since the shooting, Whitney started Whitney/Strong, an organization spreading awareness of gun violence, Stop the Bleed training, and the importance of blood donation. A torniquet applied at the scene of the shooting helped save Whitney’s life so she could get to a local Cincinnati hospital to receive more treatment including several surgeries and blood transfusions from Hoxworth blood donors.
Giving back through blood donation
Maggie says once everyone was allowed to go home from Fifth Third, she felt helpless.
“We were all not knowing what to do and worried about Whitney and someone said, ‘if you have nothing else to do tomorrow, go donate blood!’ And I thought yes! That is something I can do and something I can control and it’s helpful and it gets me out of the house.”
Maggie scheduled her appointment for the following day with Hoxworth at the Western Hills location
“I donated blood on September 7 and made a promise to myself that from that day on this is something I can do to put good back in the world and not let evil win.”
This wasn’t Maggie’s first donation with Hoxworth. That was in high school. Maggie admits she did it that day at Franklin County High School because it was a way to get out of class. But now she has a much more meaningful reason to give the gift of life.
“It’s something I can do to make a difference and save a life.”
From blood donor to recipient
In the summer of 2020, Maggie was in Maryland with her daughter when they were involved in a head-on car accident. Maggie’s daughter was able to walk away from the crash with minor cuts and bruises.
Maggie was given a 10% chance of survival due to her injuries sustained in the accident. She was in a coma for a couple of days, needed many surgeries, and countless blood transfusions. As a matter of fact, Maggie remembers the ICU nurse telling her she had never seen someone with that much blood loss survive.
Because it was during the COVID-19 pandemic, the hospital did not allow any visitors. Maggie spent 52 days in a Maryland hospital before she could come home to her husband and kids in Cincinnati.
Donating after receiving a blood transfusion
At the time, the FDA required a 12-month deferral (now 90 days) after someone received a blood transfusion. Maggie returned to donating blood at Hoxworth in October 2021. She says she remembers the anniversary of the shooting passing that year knowing she could not honor that day the way she had each year since.
Now she is back to her regular donations every few weeks. As a matter of fact, she recently started donating platelets because she is an A+ blood donor. She can now donate once every two weeks and knows she is helping people in need whether it be an emergency like a shooting, a car accident or helping cancer patients. Every donation makes a difference.
Why is it important to you to be a regular blood donor?
“Because you never know when it could be you. Whitney talks about how she wishes she would have done more to prevent gun violence before the shooting. But it didn’t affect her directly until that day. When it does that’s when you take action.”
Even Maggie admits it took her some time to act. Despite receiving blood during the birth of her second child in 2008 – 10 years before the Fifth Third shooting, she still didn’t donate blood.
“There was a shortage of blood at that time in 2008,” Maggie remembers the hospital staff explaining to her how that shortage was affecting her own treatment, “I got two blood transfusions, but they wanted to do a third. Instead, they monitored my hemoglobin and tried to supplement with food.”
Now Maggie shares information about blood donation and the need for donors every chance she gets, especially through social meda. She says she finds motivation from a Garth Brooks song about changing the world.
Garth sings, I hear them saying, "You'll never change things, and no matter what you do it's still the same thing." But it's not the world that I am changing. I do this so this world will know that it will not change me.
Maggie says many people made the decision to donate blood so she could be here today. She hopes sharing her story will help more people understand the importance of blood donation so they can also make that decision to give the gift of life.
“You never know when that next tragedy happens.”