Kent man has given 30 gallons of blood

It started out as a competitive thing with his father, an organizer of blood drives. Then it turned into a gift to his son, who was diagnosed with hemophilia.

Now John Filicetti, 53, gives blood just to give. It might help some stranger he sees by the side of the road, in a car accident. Or a hospitalized cancer patient he will never know.

"It's just such a little bit of your life you're giving, time-wise," said Filicetti, of Kent. "I just like the whole idea of it — helping someone out."

Filicetti, a senior sales engineer with eProject, has given more blood than anyone else in South Puget Sound — 30 gallons of it, to be exact. And that's not counting the dozens of times he donated blood elsewhere, as a teenager in Sunnyside, Yakima County; as a college student in Pullman; as a young family man moving around the country. It's a lifelong habit with Filicetti; he takes it wherever he goes.

Today he will cut the ribbon on the new Federal Way Puget Sound Blood Center, the second blood bank to open in South King County. The area has 9,000 active donors, with 2,500 in Federal Way alone. The only other blood bank in the area is in Tukwila.

The opening comes at a time of extreme need for the Puget Sound Blood Center, a network of blood banks in Western Washington. With school out for summer, there's an average shortage of about 2,000 donors a month.

Filicetti can't understand this. When he walks around Seattle, he sees thousands of possible donors.

Why don't they just go ahead and give? It takes less than a half-hour to give a pint, he said — plus there's juice and cookies at the end.

Filicetti donates every 56 days, the maximum he's allowed. Officials with the Puget Sound Blood Center called that contribution "incredible." Most active donors give once or twice a year.

But if it were a competition, Filicetti would not actually win. Robert Hungerschafer, of Bellingham, has given more than 500 times. Art Siegel, of Seattle, has donated more than 400 times. Filicetti would come in third, with a grand total of 243 visits since 1979.

Filicetti laughs about it now. But at one point in his life, there was not so much levity.

His son, Michael, had been diagnosed with severe hemophilia, a genetic disorder that prevents the blood from clotting properly. A blow on the arm would turn it dark and distended, with the blood pooling around the joint. Only an intravenous infusion of a substance called hemophilic factor would make it better, supplying the missing protein needed for the blood to clot.

When Michael was little, the factor he needed had components of human blood. So Filicetti gave as much as he could, in honor of his son and other children he and his family met at the summer camp sponsored by the Bleeding Disorders Foundation of Washington.

Michael is now 19, a swimmer, a soccer player and a mentor to younger kids with bleeding disorders. Next week, he heads back to summer camp as a lifeguard.

But those early years were tough. Filicetti would sit with the needle, and the factor, trying to calm his son with images of the ocean. He would call the sight of the blood streaming through the tube the "sneaky snake."

"He was always the one who was going to find the vein," said Michael, a student at Highline Community College, who self-infuses now. "Can't imagine it was easy for him, squirming little kid afraid of a needle."

Years later, at summer camp, Michael began to learn how to "poke" on his own. He practiced on a fake arm for a while, then announced he was ready to move on to his father. Filicetti stretched out his arm, ready to give.

Cara Solomon: 206-464-2024 or csolomon@seattletimes.com