Highschool principal dies after donating bone marrow to complete stranger.
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A high school principal who died after donating bone marrow to save the life of a complete stranger did everything in life "for a purpose", his family said.
Derrick Nelson, 44, underwent the typically low-risk donation procedure in February after discovering his blood was a match for an unidentified 14-year-old boy in France.
Dr Nelson, who was principal of Westfield High School in the US state of New Jersey, lapsed into a coma during the procedure, where he remained until his death on Monday (local time).
"He excelled at everything he did," his father Willie Nelson said.
"Everything he did in life was for a purpose."
Dr Nelson, who had a 6-year-old daughter and was engaged to be married, did not know the French teen, but told his high school newspaper shortly before the procedure that he was determined to help.
Derrick Nelson, New Jersey principal, dies after donating bone m..
st. peter better open those gates wide
What a heartbreaking story.
Do all kinds of donations pose such a risk?
What a great guy. Bone marrow transplants are ordinarily extremely low risk, so I wonder what it was that caused this. One of the things that frustrated me in the UK is that I tried to donate a kidney altruistically a few years ago (as that's what they're called) and it was much more involved than I expected, with them wanting to do psychological assessments and stuff that was probably going to take 18 months. I think if it was a little bit easier to get the ball rolling, more people would do these things. Living with 1 kidney is no different than with 2, with there not really being any risks unless you develop kidney cancer or something later on.
I hope this event doesn't turn people off donating things in the future. My step-sister annoyed me when I was a kid because she didn't want to donate her corneas if she died because she somehow thought she'd need them in the grave. Oh well!
He couldn't get put under general due to his sleep apnoea, but he couldn't do the alternative due to being a sickle cell carrier, so they did it under local. Didn't know you could slip into a coma from that but fuck. I'm sure he didn't think he would die from that but still a fucking hero.
Not only donated but to a complete stranger.
This dude deserves to be revered as a hero.
God smiles upon this man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woo8s2MYr-k
The guy is a hero for sure. However, it is worrying seeing this news two days after having signed the bone marrow registry...
I didn't think that was possible.
I have a personal phobia of general anesthesia, and I've only ever had local anesthesia for surgeries (which have only been for super minor dental things, the most severe of which being wisdom teeth removal) because my family dentist had similar phobias of putting people under general ("With local anesthetic, they can tell me if something is going wrong; they can't do that under general" was his explanation to me when I asked him once).
If anything, I'd think the reverse, with slipping into a coma under general anesthesia making a lot more intuitive sense to me than under local.
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