My uncle received an embossed and framable letter from Queen Elizabeth thanking him for his public service after his 100th blood donation. I was determined to get one of those so I participated in my first blood donor drive at university that fall. I was a stick figure of a girl. They asked me how much I weighed and I said 125 pounds because I’d heard them asking the same question to other stick figures. I fainted just as the bag filled. When I came to, a very stern nurse was hovering over me demanding to know how much I really weighed. My boyfriend in the bed next to me called out that I weighed 97 pounds. Nurse Ratched took my new donor card and tore it up and said I needed to be 125 pounds so I wouldn’t faint. And that was the end of that.
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My husband, while he was in college, donated blood. (I did not know him then.) He is 6’4”. Don’t know how much he weighed at the time, but I am sure it was way above the threshold. He stood up afterwards and promptly passed out. He never donated blood again.
So why don't they take half-pints from half-pints.