Then on 26 January 2001 I got up in the morning and was having my morning cuppa , I switched on the TV to watch the news and saw the NEWS FLASH about the Gujarat Earthquake. Just then my wife Fermin walked in back from school after the Flag Hoisting ceremony. She immediately called up her parents in Ahmedabad to enquire about their safety. We got first hand information about the destruction in Ahmedabad and also about the number of lives lost and injured. It immediately struck me that lots of blood will be needed for the injured. I immediately called up ZEE NEWS in New Delhi and asked them to put up a scroll on their TV "Be a Blood Donor on www.indianblooddonors.com ". Zee News put up the scroll and slowly from about 400 donors we had about 3500 donors registered on the site from all over the country.
We then came to know from one of our Pune Donors after a few days that quite a few of them were contacted to donate blood for the Earthquake victims who were brought in from Bhuj to AFMC pune.
