Billy Garrett Jr. Is Asking You To Give Blood
Billy Garrett Jr. grew up loving basketball—his grandfather, Bill Garrett, was the first Black basketball player to regularly play in the Big Ten conference of American college basketball. Billy made his own history in the game, too. When he took the floor for the New York Knicks on April 3, 2019, he became the first player with sickle cell disease in NBA history.
When Garrett was 12, he was at a basketball camp when a sickle cell crisis that caused splenic sequestration, which is when sickled (or abnormal) red blood cells “get trapped in the spleen and block blood flow, causing it to suddenly get bigger, fill with blood, and become swollen and painful,” per the U.S. Centers for Central Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This event resulted in Garrett’s first-ever blood transfusion.
Sickle cell disease is a hereditary blood disorder disease, meaning a person diagnosed with sickle cell inherits specific genes from their parents. The CDC states that people with sickle cell have red blood cells that are not round like healthy red blood cells. As a result, the C-shaped red blood cells (which can resemble a common farming tool called a sickle) can get stuck in blood vessels and are also prone to die early. According to the American Red Cross, more than 100,000 Americans have sickle cell disease—and Black Americans are most likely to be affected by it, as one out of every 365 Black Americans is diagnosed with sickle cell disease.
Today Garrett is a shooting guard for ZTE Zalakeramia in Hungary. Ahead, he and The Healthy by Reader’s Digest discuss how donating blood can be one of the most meaningful ways to commemorate Black History Month. Use the Red Cross Blood Donor App, visit RedCrossBlood.org/OurBlood or call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) today.
