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Date Posted: 07:42:56 08/17/09 Mon
Author: Selfless , inspirational
Subject: A positive story. for corrections

Home News & Opinion Local Coverage
Correctional officer donates bone marrow to sick teen
Match maker
By Laurel J. Sweet
Monday, August 17, 2009 - Updated 8h ago
+ Recent Articles + Email + Bio

Award-winning court and crime reporter Laurel J. Sweet has been featured in the ABC miniseries "Boston 24/7" and the 9-11 documentary motion picture "Looking For My Brother."
E-mail Print (15) Comments Text size Share Buzz up!An Essex County correctional officer has been voluntarily burning up his sick leave this month in order to donate bone marrow to a 13-year-old stranger he may never even meet - all because Daniel Katz responded to a Be the Match Registry drive five years ago while a freshman at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

The sum total Katz, 24, knows about the life he may be saving is the boy is stricken with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

“Whether I know him or not doesn’t matter,” the native Marbleheader said. “Someone who’s 13 doesn’t deserve to be going through that.”


In keeping with the physical demands of his job, Katz’s summer would more typically be spent running, lifting weights and shooting hoops with pals. Instead, he had surgery Aug. 5 - a series of needles stuck in his lower back to extract marrow from his hip bone.

“I couldn’t really walk for the (first) week, and I was told it takes about two or three months for the bone marrow to regenerate,” said Katz, who plans to be back at work by the end of the month.

“As his colleagues, we just think it’s an incredibly selfless act and he deserves a lot of credit for enduring this,” said Paul Fleming, spokesman for Essex Sheriff Frank G. Cousins Jr.

National Marrow Donor Program spokeswoman Catherine Claeys said only 30 percent of donors actually undergo surgery vs. the majority who donate peripheral blood stem cells. And of the 7 million people on the registry, only one in 200 “are actually ever called.”

Katz will receive updates on the boy’s health and, after one year, if the child’s family wants to make his acquaintance, Katz must also be willing to give up his anonymity as a donor.

But if that day never comes, Katz wants his marrow match to at least know, “There are people out there who care about others. He should grow up with that mindset

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