NY Daily News – March 04, 2015
by Lisa L. Colangelo
Michael McCauley had only been a firefighter for a few months when he saved a life — and he didn’t even have to run into a burning building to do it. The 26-year-old Staten Island resident was told in 2013 that he was a match for a leukemia patient in desperate need of a bone-marrow transplant.
On Wednesday, he will finally meet the mystery recipient — Aaron Faulkner, a 33-year-old Iraq War veteran and father of two from Pittsburgh, at a special reception at FDNY headquarters in Brooklyn.
“I went a long time without hearing anything,” said McCauley, who works out of Engine 242 in Bay Ridge. “I wasn’t sure whether or not it helped.”
Faulkner, a former Marine now studying to be a pastor, was a student at Geneva College in Pennsylvania when he started to feel pains and exhaustion. He thought the blood test he took in March 2013 would reveal he had an annoying case of mononucleosis — not acute myeloid leukemia.
“I thought I was just out of shape, but it kept getting worse and worse,” recalled Faulkner, who was immediately hospitalized following the test.
Like many firefighters, McCauley signed up for the New York Blood Center’s bone-marrow registry as a probie — a fateful decision that set in motion a whirlwind of tests and hospital visits that led to Faulkner’s donation in October 2013.
He was one of three matches found for Faulkner — and determined to be the best donor.
“I was like, OK, let’s get started,” said McCauley, a former FDNY emergency medical technician who comes from a long line of firefighters.
He received shots for a week and then spent close to 10 hours over a two-day period to donate.
“The nurses were very nice and very kind,” he said. “They make you as comfortable as possible.”
Over the past 20 years, the FDNY has become the largest single group on the registry awaiting donors with more than 8,000 people on the list. More than 170 firefighters have been bone-marrow donors.
“The bone-marrow program has saved countless lives and we hope others will follow the FDNY’s example by joining the Be the Match registry,” said Dr. Christopher Hillyr, president of the New York Blood Center.
“Seventy percent of patients who need a transplant do not have a matching donor in their family and donors can give them the gift of life.”
On Wednesday, Faulkner and McCauley will join 22 FDNY blood-marrow donors at the 11th Annual Honor Roll of Life ceremony at FDNY Headquarters in downtown Brooklyn.
“You’re giving someone an opportunity and giving yourself an opportunity to help somebody,” said Faulkner, who returned home from Iraq in 2004.
“It’s not just that person. It’s their entire family and their future.”
The donation gave Faulkner, for one, a new lease on life. The 6-foot, 225-pound former Marine could barely walk across the hospital floor after losing 65 pounds — but all that has changed.
“I can go running now,” said Faulkner, who is still undergoing treatments. He’s hoping to return to work and continue studying later this year.
Faulkner and his wife, Leslie, arrived Tuesday and were staying in a Midtown hotel. They look forward to meeting McCauley and visiting the 9/11 Museum.
McCauley said he was happy to be part of Faulkner’s long recovery.
“He’s got more than one person depending on him,” he said. “He has kids, a wife and he’s a veteran. I helped someone who did a lot for this country.”
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