AN international mission is underway to help a save a strangers life by a presenter from North Yorkshire working for a radio station in Poland.

Tom Holdstock from Middleton Tyas is due to go into hospital in Warsaw next week to start the medical process that will mean his bone marrow can be used to treat and hopefully save the life of a person he has never met who has terminal bone cancer. The 21 year-old admits it's a bit scary but says it is something that needs to be done and most people 'would take it on 'in a heartbeat'.

The patient who Tom knows absolutely nothing about has been connected through the NHS in Wales where Tom originally donated blood and signed up to become a bone marrow donor when he was at university in Cardiff.

He said: "Last June just before I left university they contacted me to say they had a potential match, I told them I was moving to Poland with my girlfriend and then I heard nothing until this May when they called to say they now definitely needed the donation.

"I did say it was difficult because of coronavirus but they were obviously willing to pull all the stops out, at one point they were talking about flying me back to the Uk, which would have meant two weeks quarantine in the UK and another two weeks coming back to Poland, although I would have been prepared to do it."

Now however arrangements have been made for Tom, who presents programmes for the English Language service on Radio Gdansk and teaches, to go to Warsaw for tests with plans for the bone marrow to be harvested on July 6.

He added: "It is a bit nerve wracking, they are gong to do the dialysis method, where they harvest the cells from my blood which means I have to spend several hours on a machine. It is a bit scary but I think the overwhelming majority of people would take it on in a heartbeat. It is something that needs to be done. It really doesn’t matter if you are going to have to sit still for five hours and then save someone's life.

"I don’t know anything about the person who is going to get the donation, but they will be somebody’s son or daughter, father, mother, brother or sister, and you would hope in the same situation someone would do the same for you."

Parents Peter and Clare Holdstock from Middleton Tyas said they're just hoping the treatment goes well and they get the chance to go and see Tom when the coronavirus allows.