Alexandra Peterson, a recent high school graduate, was driving the same route to work as she would any other day. She drove over a hill where a waiting line of cars caught her by surprise. She swerved left, nicked the last of the waiting cars and spun into the other lane where another vehicle collided with her car.

She was pronounced dead at the scene. A few minutes later, however, the civilian watching over her noticed movement.

“I was trying to breathe,” Peterson, now a sophomore in agricultural business, said.

Peterson was immediately taken to the hospital, where she said she underwent emergency surgery that would save her life but cost her 14 units of blood.

Emergencies like Peterson’s are the reason behind hosting blood drives. The ISU Blood Drive puts on two drives a year — once in the fall and once in the spring.

The spring blood drive ended March 27. Kenny Wade, one of the co-directors for the blood drive, said 1,824 units of blood were collected throughout the week.

“Now I know how important it is,” Peterson said about donating blood, although she herself has been unable to donate. “Since [the accident], my family has been involved with the Red Cross.”

The ISU Blood Drive, which began March 24, had a slow start, according to volunteers.

Wade said the blood drive managed to collect more donations than the rest of the Big 12 schools.

“I think it went pretty well. We started off a little slow,” said Mark Vormezeele, the executive in charge of volunteers. “We came back strong on [March 26] and [March 27].”

The number of units collected March 27 was 564, Wade said.

The spring blood drive is historically slower than the fall blood drive. This year, due to changes to Greek Week, there were concerns the blood drive would see a decline in a number of donations.

“I think the blood drive was a smashing success, compared to what we projected,” Wade said. “We thought we were going to take a much larger hit due to the new Greek Week rules, but we turned out to actually meet our goal I believe.”

Wade said the goal was about 1,800 units of blood.

Students — which Vormezeele said spent an average of half an hour to an hour and a half donating, depending on how much traffic there was — had different reasons for donating.

“We have Greek Week, so [I was] trying to support my fraternity,” said Patrick Holstad, freshman in pre-architecture.

Kevin Cheng, sophomore in psychology, said he donated blood for extra credit in one of his classes.

Vormezeele said that in addition to the donors, the blood drive saw approximately 600 people who contributed by way of volunteering.

“This is one of the only organizations where you can actually save lives,” Vormezeele said.

The greek blood drive competition winners — a contest hosted exclusively by the ISU Blood Drive — will be announced this weekend.

The ISU Blood Drive is run by students in association with the American Red Cross, Mississippi Valley Regional Blood Center and LifeServe Blood Center.