92-year-old makes giving blood memorable

She will talk to you about your kids, your house, your church — or her favorite topic, sports. Whatever it takes to make you feel comfortable and take your mind off feeling nothing but “just a pin stick,” as Mildred Noechel describes the prick someone feels when they give blood.

For many, this “pin stick” (donating blood) is not so easy. That is why Noechel, 92, has made the Red Cross a part of her life for 40 years. Every Tuesday, she can be found volunteering at the Community Drawing Center in Lynchburg.

With her warm personality and quick wit, Noechel does what she can to make giving blood not an altogether unpleasant experience.

“I talk to them. Sometimes, they are a little edgy. I do what I can to make them comfortable,” said Noechel, who was honored last month for her years of service as a Red Cross volunteer.

Some patients are repeat donors for medical reasons, but most of the patients Noechel serves are donating blood for their own surgery. For many, it is their first time donating, and they can be a little apprehensive.

Noechel stays with them throughout. She brings them beverages, offers a hand of comfort, reassures them or lightens the mood with a good joke.

“Whatever you think will take their mind off what they are doing,” Noechel said. “Many are just grateful that you can talk to them and calm their nerves a little.”

After the blood is drawn, Noechel takes the patients gently by the arm and leads them back to the “canteen” to rest and enjoy some of her homemade cookies. Last week, she made “Jubilee Jumbles.” One donor left saying, “whoever made these cookies, they made my day.”

Noechel’s service is making a difference. One donor recently came back in and told her, “I remember you from when I had my surgery seven years ago.”

Noechel has decades of medical experience. She volunteered for the Red Cross at the beginning of World War II before serving as a hospital corpsman in the Navy for three years. After coming home from Long Island, N.Y., she married and raised her two children. But it wasn’t long after they were in school that Noechel began volunteering once again.

Now a great-grandmother, she has stuck with the Red Cross for so long because “I’ve seen what they do,” Noechel said. “When I was in the Navy, I saw many times when they were very helpful to services folks. They are the first ones to respond when disaster strikes. All those things make me feel like they are worthwhile.”

Noechel doesn’t understand why her years of volunteering are anything special, and jokes she does it because she would “rather be here than home vacuuming.”

But her service is far from the ordinary. Phlebotomist Nicole Dillard says, “They notice when she is not here.”

She has no plans of quitting. Even at 92, “It’s something I get more out of it the more I give,” Noechel said.