Student Meets, Thanks Bone Marrow Donor

On September 2, a grateful bone marrow recipient from Canada got to meet the American donor he considers an angel for saving his life.

In 2002, Dany Mercado was an engineering student from Kitchener, Ontario who was battling leukemia.

Meanwhile, Wes Hamilton of Abilene, Texas was a medical student who gave blood and put his name on a donor registry at a campus blood drive without giving much thought to the action.

Hamilton was later contacted by doctors and told he could be a match for a young man who required a bone marrow transplant. He told the Waterloo Record how he consulted with his wife Jenny before deciding to become a donor.

"If one of our girls got sick, I couldn't ask someone to help if I didn't [donate]," he explained. "It was the deciding point for us."

Seven years later, Mercado is on the road to recovery and has returned to studying engineering. Meanwhile, Hamilton says the experience has changed his life.

The two men got a chance to meet in person at the Karmanos Cancer Center in Detroit—the same location where Mercado's bone marrow transplant took place in January 2008.

"Wes is my angel," Mercado told the Toronto Sun. "It's a dream come true to meet my donor and see him face-to-face to thank him for this tremendous gift."

Mercado was told the transplant carried only a 10 percent chance of succeeding, according to the Record.