Individuals who want to donate whole blood or apheresis must be : At least 16 years old (donors under the age of 17 may only donate whole blood, and must have a signed parental/guardian consent form). At least 19 years old and weigh a minimum of 110 pounds.
Your heart handles blood in much the same way. The heart pumps about 2,000 gallons (7,571 liters) of blood a day through its chambers. Of Â­course, we're not big enough to hold that much liquid, so it just pumps the same blood over and over, and it doesn't benefit from a drop of it. At least, not initially.
The normal heart is a strong, muscular pump a little larger than a fist. It pumps blood continuously through the circulatory system. 1  Each day the average heart beats (expands and contracts) 100,000 times and pumps about 2,000 gallons of blood. 2  In a 70-year lifetime, an average human heart beats more than 2.5 billion times.