A teenager preparing for his A-levels has made a potentially life-saving donation of stem cells to a stranger.
Jamie McGuigan, a Year 14 student at Strabane Academy, signed up as a stem cell donor with charity DKMS’s new schools programme in December.
The County Tyrone teenager was matched with a patient weeks later and is the first donor in the UK from the schools programme.
Jamie said while he was nervous at first “the opportunity to help someone else outweighed the nerves”.
“It was just after my 18th birthday,” he said.
“Having been on the register for such a short time I think everyone was surprised to find out I had been identified as a match – I was very surprised myself.”
Jamie flew to Sheffield with his mother and donated his stem cells through his blood.
“It was amazing to see the machine working,” he said.
