Red Cross Everyday Hero May Set Guinness World Record

By Rick Wells, The News On 6

TULSA, OK -- The Tulsa Chapter of the American Red Cross will honor its "Everyday Heroes" this Friday night.

One of them may soon be in the Guinness Book of World Records for doing something he says is as easy as lying down.

"I didn't start 'til I was 27 years old," Darwin Eaton said.

Eaton, his wife Georgia and I are talking about his 60 years as a blood donor. He's donated 328 pints, that's 41 gallons of blood - actually 329 he gave last week. He's on his way to 42 gallons.

His wife made a velvet sash to display all his donor awards on. The Red Cross gives donors a card to record donations, and he has all of his, dating back to his first pint in February of 1949.

"I worked for Warren Petroleum," Eaton said. "Mr. Warren was a backer of the Blood Center."

He's not missed a year since '49, and that's one of the things the Guinness people are interested in: consecutive years of blood donation as well as the 41 gallon total.

The Tulsa Chapter of the Red Cross will honor him Friday night as its Gift of Life Hero. He says he doesn't feel heroic; it's too easy.

"You get to lie down on the job, and you get rewarded for lying down," said Darwin Eaton, a Red Cross Everyday Hero.

The Red Cross says a pint of blood can save three lives. Eaton believes giving blood prolonged his own life. On a trip to the blood bank 40 years ago, he discovered he had high blood pressure.

"If I hadn't gone I might have had a stroke," he said.

So this Everyday Hero's actions may have saved his own life as well as others'. The Red Cross is still waiting from the Guinness people to hear if Eaton's 41 pints of blood qualify him for a world record.