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Western New York man has donated blood platelets for 50 years

Jim Kuhlmann has donated more than 1,100 units through the years.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — One Western New York man had a record-breaking achievement.

You're about to meet a man who's been going to Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center for the past 50 years, and that's not his Guinness World Record.

It would be another 25 years, before pheresis specialist Joelle Salerno was even born, that Jim Kuhlmann started coming to Roswell Park to donate his blood platelets.

"My dad and one of his friends became regular donors as a result of a need for a friend of theirs. I became a substitute one time when my father couldn't make it, and that was back in December of 1970."

Donating platelets involves drawing your blood, spinning it to remove the platelet cells, and returning it back to you.

"We would not be able to give people chemotherapy that we give them, they wouldn't be able to survive the chemotherapy that we give them, and every unit of platelets that we give them comes from a donor." 

Jim Kuhlmann has donated more than 1,100 units through the years.

"Gallons are probably not the appropriate measure, but that's the measure we always use for people who donate."  

In Jim's case, about 187 gallons.

"That's a pretty good number. I wonder if there's a world record for that."

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