Man Flies to Texas to Meet Kid Who He Saved With His Bone Marrow

By THC Staff | October 19, 2017

 

In 2014, young Luke McCormick received a bone marrow transplant from Austin Rains who lived across the country. Now, the two have finally met. McCormick, who’s seven-years-old, was happy to meet Rains, 26, after he flew from Ohio to meet McCormick at the La Villita Assembly Hall in San Antonio during a gathering put on by the Be The Match bone marrow registry and Methodist Children’s Hospital. KSAT was there while the two sat together and bonded. As McCormick likes to say, they’re “bone marrow brothers.”

The news explains that McCormick was “…diagnosed with a rare, genetic disorder, hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, or HLH,” and the best form of treatment is to transplant bone marrow. Rains had no idea the difference he would eventually make when he donated marrow after seeing a Be the Match booth set up on his college campus. So what made him stop and take a closer look? “I think they were giving out free T-shirts, to be honest with you,” he told KSAT with a smile.

If you want to learn more about Be The Match and become someone else’s hero, you can join the Match Registry if you’re between 18-44-years-old, and meet health requirements. If you’re called in as a match, the marrow is extracted from the pelvis bone through a surgical procedure.