A 15-YEAR-OLD girl who was critically ill after contracting glandular fever had her life saved thanks to the help of blood donors.
Gaby Wood needed between 15 and 20 pints of blood – double the amount usually found in the human body – after the illness caused her spleen to rupture.
The NHS says this complication is very rare, only occurring in around one in every 1,000 cases of glandular fever.
Gaby had two emergency operations to first try and save, and then remove her spleen, which was leaking blood.
After eight days in hospital, the teenager has battled back and is gearing up to sit her first GCSE exam this week.
Gaby, of Chatsworth Street, Sutton-in-Ashfield, said: "If I hadn't have had blood, I would have definitely died. I can remember telling my mum 'I love you and I think I'm dying'."
She added: "It's a natural instinct that we should give blood. It saves lives. It's quite scary but awesome that I've got lots of different people's blood inside me."
Since her life-saving blood transfusions in October, members of Gaby's family have pledged to become blood donors.
Gaby's mother, Stephanie Corps, said: "Giving blood is so important. None of us know when we could need it to save our lives."
The Post is supporting a nationwide push for more blood donors to come forward.
More than 500 people have signed up to become new blood donors in Nottingham and Notts in less than four weeks.
It comes after the Post highlighted that the number of young people aged between 17 and 24 giving blood in Nottingham and Notts had dropped by more than a third in two years.
