A TEENAGE blood cancer patient whose life was saved by a stranger is calling on other young people to help him recruit potential donors.

Thomas Court from Bedale is staging a donor event at the town’s primary school tomorrow, September 5, between 4.30pm to 7.30pm to encourage people between 16 to 30 to join the Antony Nolan register. It connects leukaemia patients with potential bone marrow donors so they can get life saving treatment.

The teenager says signing up involves ten minutes of time to fill in forms and a simple mouth swab. He was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia when he was just sixteen in April 2018.

The 17-year-old was admitted to hospital to undergo seven months of intense treatment but the leukaemia had a high risk of returning and he was told he needed a transplant.

When there were no matches with family Thomas turned to the Antony Nolan register and a close match was found.

“It was a selfless man, a complete stranger who had signed up to the register and was now willing to donate his bone marrow to save my life. I, and my family will all be forever grateful," he said.

“Knowing that there was someone out there gave me hope. None of this could have happened without the Antony Nolan register and that selfless amazing man who signed up. I have been given a second chance at life and I am not wasting it,”added Thomas who took is GCSE’s this year and is looking forward to college and university.

Lynsey Dickson, Regional Register Development Manager at Anthony Nolan, said: “We are delighted that Thomas has chosen to share his story to inspire people to sign up as donors. We particularly need young men to join the register as they are the most likely to be chosen to donate.

“Every day, five people like Thomas start their search for a matching stem cell donor. Every person that joins the register has the potential to be somebody’s lifesaver.”

For anyone who cannot get to the donor session this week contact www.anthonynolan.org/ for information about signing up.