Ref. 28391-24They don't know the names of the people who are given their bone marrow, but volunteers do know they are giving someone, somewhere a chance to live. BHAVANI VADDE reports.

REBECCA Culling and David Gartside have each given someone a last ditch chance of life.

They have little idea who they have helped all they know is that their bone marrow has been transplanted to a leukaemia suffer.

Rebecca and David join a growing number of people from the Swindon area who have donated tissue through the Anthony Nolan Trust.

Bone marrow transplants are the last hope for a patient with leukaemia or related diseases when chemotherapy and radiotherapy are no longer an option.

For ethical reasons, donors are only given scant details of the person whose life they may be saving.

Rebecca's tissue has gone to a young boy who lives in the UK.

The 23-year-old said: "You can ask to be updated and after two years, if both parties agree they can meet each other.

"I would do that if they approached me but I did not do it to become a part of their lives. That would be a bit strange."

Rebecca decided to join the register when she was at university in Manchester and got a call from the Trust not long after she started work as a physiotherapist at the Great Western Hospital.

"I donate blood anyway, so I thought I had a chance of helping somebody while I was still young and fit," she added.

Rebecca, from Liden, helps rehabilitate victims of strokes and MS sufferers.

She said: "I work with people who are really ill and I don't think people appreciate their health enough.

"I am very lucky so I don't mind having a couple of needles stuck in my back.

"It was sore for the first three days. I was hobbling around like a little old lady and I was a bit tired from the anaesthetic but I didn't really mind."

David, 39, of Haydon Street, had been on the Trust's register for 20 years before his tissue was a suitable match for a cancer sufferer.

"The Trust had contacted me twice before for blood samples and both times it wasn't suitable," he said.

"I thought it might turn out the same again so I was quite shocked when they said I matched."

David, who works as a clerk, explained how he came to join the register of donors.

"There was an article in the Advertiser about the Anthony Nolan Trust, just making people more aware about it.

"I thought I would like to give somebody else a chance of life. All I know is my bone marrow was given to a man in America."

They are the latest in a long line of donors who have come from the Swindon area.

According to the Anthony Nolan Trust, 3,027 people from Swindon are on their register, of whom 49 have donated bone marrow.

Earlier in the year, fire fighter Les Jefferies donated bone marrow to an American man suffering from leukaemia.

Unfortunately, the patient caught an infection and died last month.

But Mr Jefferies, 49, did not feel his donation was in vain and encourages other healthy adults to join the register.

"At the end of the day, saving a life is one of the greatest things someone can do. If the transplant had been successful it would have been even better but at least the gentleman had another chance."

Mr Jefferies was the third fire fighter from the town's Drove Road fire station to have donated bone marrow. His former colleagues Danny Gray and Dave Hammond were also donors.

He added: "For three people who work together to all be donors is very unusual. That's because the tissue match has to be exact and very precise."

In 1987, Mr Gray, was matched with a German boy called Mathias. Although there were some signs of recovery, Mathias' body rejected the bone marrow and he died aged nine that year.

And in 1997, Mr Hammond donated bone marrow to a young boy but the outcome of that procedure is unknown.

Currently there are more than 4,000 children with leukaemia who have reached the stage in their treatment where a bone tomorrow transplant is there final chance.

For many of them, the chance of finding a matching donor is slim because unlike blood, there are millions of types of bone marrow.

Charity spokeswoman Sharon Wells is urging more people to join the register to improve the chances of finding a matching donor for patients around the world.

She says the Trust specifically needs more men and people from ethnic minority backgrounds to sign up.

She said: "Because of the very specific matching needed between the patient and the donor, you may never be called upon.

"But if you are, it is a great feeling to know you may be savings someone's life and taking it back from leukaemia."

If you are a healthy individual aged between 18 and 40 and want to find out more about becoming a potential donor then ring 0901 88 22 234.