Soldier saves local teen

After serving five years in the United States Army, including a year in Iraq, Christopher Sauceda, of San Antonio, Texas, returned home looking for ways to give back to his community. He joined the National Marrow Donor Program® (NMDP) Registry. Within a year, he learned he matched a patient with aplastic anemia, a patient who was in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant. He had already served his country, now he would save the life of a boy he had never met.

Fourteen-year-old Richard Garay of Grand Prairie, Texas, is healthy, back to school and enjoying time with friends. And for his seemingly normal teenaged life, he has Christopher, a man with a five-year military history to thank. Richard and his family met Christopher and his family for the first time at Children's Medical Center on February 11, 2008. Richard's mother, Raquel, says Christopher's selfless donation is "proof that angels still exist."

Dallas Residents Can Save a Life, Too

Every Valentine's Day, Children's hosts the "Be a Matchmaker" Bone Marrow Donor Drive. During the drive, volunteer donors can join the NMDP Registry for free. All it takes to get registered – and potentially save a life – is a cotton swab of the mouth to determine a donor's tissue type.

Usually, the fee to join the NMDP Registry is $52 per person to cover tissue-typing costs; however, the Richardson/North Texas Tri Delta alumnae chapter generously sponsored 2008's event.

The Registry is open to healthy people between the ages of 18 and 60. There is a distinct need for ethnic and racial minorities, who are under-represented on the Registry.

Richard's Story

After more than a year and a half of blood transfusions, Richard's physicians at Children's Medical Center Dallas determined a bone marrow transplant would be the best treatment for his life-threatening disease.

A bone marrow transplant can be an effective therapy for patients with some types of cancer, blood disorders and immunodeficiency disorders. A patient's tissue type is inherited, but there is only a 30 percent chance that a sibling will match. Unfortunately, none of Richard's siblings was a suitable donor. Instead, the family looked to the NMDP Registry and prayed.

Patients are most likely to match someone of their same race or ethnicity. To secure the most suitable match, it's not uncommon for the marrow to be found, collected and couriered from halfway across the globe. However, in Richard's case, his perfect match was a perfect stranger whose family happened to live down the street from his grandmother in San Antonio.

Richard was given a second chance at life when he received Sergeant Sauceda's bone marrow on July 13, 2006. It took Richard six grueling weeks in isolation before his family learned the transplant had been a success. And on February 11, Richard finally was able to thank the man who saved his life.

Tags: bone, marrow, donor, drive, soldier, transplant, volunteer