Nechelle Ervin’s selfless act of joining the registry saved the life of a 15-year-old boy. “I learned that there was a pressing need for more minorities in the registry and that I could possibly help save a life” She is now a Baylor Health Care System recruiter & coordinator for the National Marrow Donor Program.
Ervin received the call on her birthday in June 2005. A teenager diagnosed with leukemia was on his third round of chemotherapy and in desperate need of a marrow transplant. She was a perfect match. “It weighed on my heart that this was something I must do. I have two children of my own and my son was almost the same age as this child at the time. All I could think about were my kids and how I would want someone to help my child,” she says. With her sacrifice, a young boy could experience life. “It was a little bit of me that I gave,” she says. “I feel like he’s my own child. He has my immune system, my allergies and my blood type.”
