Sitting quietly on a reclined chair Thursday, Shannon Schneeman watched her blood move through the tubes hooked up to her arm, smiled and said she felt just fine.

“We’ve got a beautiful flow going,” said Mona Haider, a blood-donor specialist, as she checked to see how fast Schneeman’s blood was being drawn.

Schneeman, a Weinberg junior and second-time blood donor, was one of more than 90 students who went to donate blood at the Louis Room of Norris University Center on the second and final day of Student Blood Services’ blood drive. One hundred and fourteen students showed up on Wednesday.

“This is what we were hoping for,” said Maya Ragavan, co-president of the group.

By 5:30 p.m. Thursday, administrators were turning away walk-in donors because so many had come in that they couldn’t handle them all.

“Having a pint of your blood taken and seeing it there is not the most comforting thing,” Schneeman said.

But afterward, sitting before a table covered in multi-colored packages of treats and with a Band-Aid on her iodine-covered arm, Schneeman was calm and nonchalant.

The process doesn’t always go so smoothly, Haider said. Once in a while, someone faints. Usually it’s because the donor hasn’t had enough food or fluids beforehand, or is stressed and anxious.

“A lot of it is just mental,” Haider said. “They think they will faint, so they do.”

Haider said fainters tended to be first-time donors. She talks them through the ordeal and encourages them to help ease the process.

“I’m about to pee in my pants a little bit,” said Clifton Saurel, one first-time donor, smiling weakly as he was about to get his blood drawn.

Saurel, a Weinberg sophomore, said he was scared of needles but wanted to overcome his anxiety to help others.

“I don’t want to be limited by my fear,” he said.

Sometimes finding a vein to draw from at all can be difficult, Haider said. When a vein pops out unmistakably after the donor squeezes a spongey red ball, she happily declares it “gorgeous.”

If a vein is hard to find, she prescribes Gatorade, which helps the vessel stand out.

Occassionally, blood starts to clot in the tubes.

“My blood just clots faster than some,” said Mike Danaher, a Communication junior, who was unable to donate a full unit – 500 milliliters, or slightly less than one pint – because of clotting. He had not encountered any problems the two times he had donated blood before.

Many of the donors said they first started giving blood in high school and have become regular donors since then.

Other than the people who donate consistently, the volume of donors tends to fluctuate, Haider said. “When there’s a crisis, it peaks,” she said. “After 9/11, we had to turn people away.”

The shelf life of blood is only 42 days, so they can’t take too much blood at a time.

As they waited out the 15 minutes after donating before they could leave the Louis Room, students cheerfully sported heart-shaped stickers that read, “Be nice to me. I donated blood today.”

Reach Jenny Song at [email protected].