Traumatizing my son

I picked my 3-year-old son up from daycare yesterday afternoon and had one of my "I'm the best Daddy in the world" ideas. Since the bloodmobile was at the high school, I figured I'd take him up there and let him watch people donating blood. He gets a kick out of medical stuff, and enjoys playing with his little doctor's kit. Plus, he's been learning about the heart in his preschool class. I thought this would be a great opportunity for him...

...so we get to the school, and everything's fine for awhile. There's a student in one of the chairs getting prepped for his donation. We talk about how the "nurse" will poke him with a needle, and then they'll fill a bag up with his blood so that they can take it to the hospital and give to somebody who's sick. He was fine with all of this...

...so then we went around to the other side of the donation area to where one of my co-workers was in the middle of a donation. As soon as he saw that there was actually blood coming out of her arm and filling up the little bag hanging below her, he went completely catatonic. The technician who was monitoring the donation reassured my son that she wasn't hurting the donor. The donor did her best to show how healthy and happy she was, and that it didn't really even hurt. And I kept reminding him that the blood would be used to help somebody who's sick at the hospital. None of this worked...he just stared blankly at the whole process...lady...nurse...blood...needle...bag...blood...needle...blood...arm...BLOOD...NEEDLE...barely able to respond with simple nods when I asked him a question...

...so I think I've traumatized him for life. He'll probably never give blood, and may even grow up to start some sort of "anti-blood donation" activist group. A career in health care is probably WAY out of the question at this point. Even though he eventually rallied* and snapped out of his semi-comatose state, I'm afraid the damage may be irreversible.

*His rally was due, in large part, to the ALYX machine** that was on site. Surely something that fancy looking had a jet engine attached to it somewhere...

**Actually, it was probably the cookies that we cobbed from the "hydration station" that saved the day more than anything else. Nothing wards off permanent psychological damage like NutterButters and Oreos.