# Blood donation and the dead

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-donation-and-the-dead/442434>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [March 23, 2008, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-donation-and-the-dead/442434 "2008-03-23T15:08:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\
**Post date:** [March 23, 2008, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-donation-and-the-dead/442434/1 "2008-03-23T15:08:58Z")

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Can blood from dead people be sent to a blood bank, or is it pretty much unusable once the heart stops pumping?

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**Author:** ![GilaB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8e7dd6/32.png) [@GilaB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GilaB)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-donation-and-the-dead/442434/2 "2008-03-24T17:16:17Z")

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Well, you can’t exactly ask the dead guy if he had sex with a man _even once_ since 1977.

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**Author:** ![hawksgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ed655f/32.png) [@hawksgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawksgirl)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-donation-and-the-dead/442434/3 "2008-03-24T17:19:36Z")

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It’s hard to get blood from dead things. I tried once in a lab and nothing came out.

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**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-donation-and-the-dead/442434/4 "2008-03-24T17:20:34Z")

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[QUOTE=hawksgirl]  
It’s hard to get blood from dead things.  
[/quote]

Mortuary workers don’t seem to have any problem pumping the blood out of corpses.

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**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-donation-and-the-dead/442434/5 "2008-03-24T17:25:51Z")

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I realize that you can’t get a full medical and sexual history on a dead body. I also realize there’s plenty of tests that can be run on blood to determine if it’s usable.

I also realize that once the heart starts pumping, you can’t rely on the circular system to pump it anywhere. But I also know that when you die your blood doesn’t just go to wherever your soul might go. You still remain a sack of skin full of blood.

So what of all that blood? Can it be sucked out of the body, tested, and used in a blood bank? Or is it not cost-effective or not usable as blood?

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**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\
**Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blood-donation-and-the-dead/442434/6 "2008-03-24T18:44:01Z")

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It congeals and separates into blobs in the vessels (and heart), among other things. Some of it may leak out of the capillaries and into the tissues. It does something similar to “pool and gather” on dependent organs. Grossly, simplified, these things happen to blood of dead animals. Microscopically, chemically, I’m sure more things happen (I’m not really right now in the mood to go searching in my books about it).