More than 100 volunteers gave blood at the University Hospital in Burgas for people hurt in the tragedy on the Trakia motorway. Supplies for taking blood ran out before noon, said Dr Sabina Kostadinova from the transfusion haematology unit. Today even more people want to donate.
The pile-up in the Yambol area happened yesterday in fog. Police closed the motorway in the lane towards Sofia, and drivers from Burgas took a detour through Karnobat and Petolachkata.
Earlier on this story: 11 dead and 51 hurt on the Trakia motorway, Radev: The motorway is not a racetrack
Queues stretch outside blood centres across the country, with many times more donors than usual. Many of them waited more than 4 hours.
More than 340 people came today to the National Centre of Transfusion Haematology in Sofia, nearly three times the usual number, the centre said. It has reached its limit, and some people were asked to come next week. The centres ask everyone who has decided to donate not to give up and to come in the next few days.
The team is worn out and physically cannot take everyone who wants to give blood, said Dr Veselin Slivov of the centre. With such a rush, some of the blood collected may go unused, he said.
Whole families are coming to Burgas. More than 10 pupils from the Yuri Gagarin Sports School came with their teachers. Deputy head Krasimira Yakimova said they brought the children so they would understand why giving blood matters. One woman donor called the experience moving and hard, and said she was thinking of the parents.
Everyone travels, and it can happen to anyone, said another donor. In his view, people must now show that we think of one another.
An 18-year-old girl in Yambol gave blood for the first time. For her, it was the right decision.
In Sliven, dozens of people waited in line, some of whom had signed up the day before. Two women donors said the cause is worth the wait and that giving blood is a small gesture to help.
The mother of a young man hurt in an earlier crash came to give blood in Sliven yesterday, said Dr Pavlina Shteliyanova. The town held a blood drive on a similar scale at that time.