New Mills teen meets his German stem cell donor after life-saving transplant

Now 17, Jim Wood was diagnosed with a type of blood cancer when he was just five years old. It which caused ulcers and sores across his body, leaving him in and out of hospital throughout his childhood.

In 2018, he received a donation of bone marrow which gradually replaced his damaged blood cells with healthy ones and allowed him to begin living a normal life and catching up on all the things he had missed out on.

Jim, currently working at KFC and saving up for his first car, said: “At first I didn't want to have it done as there was no guarantee that it would cure me and could even make me worse. But after a very long discussion with my family and the doctors, I decided it was the only chance I had of getting some sort of life back.

“Afterwards I always wondered who had been so kind and thoughtful to do this.”

The answer was Bavarian Stefan Koppold, 40, found to be a suitable match from an international donor register.

Jim and Stefan first made contact via email and text two years after the operation, but the pandemic delayed plans to meet up until a few weeks ago when they were invited to a gala event in London for blood cancer charity DKMS.

Jim said: “To finally meet Stefan was one of the happiest days of my life. This kind and caring man did a small but huge thing and saved my life.

“Without Stefan donating I most likely wouldn't be alive today and I am finally living a life full of adventures and achieving things I once only dreamed of.”

The meeting meant just as much to Stefan. As a father of three, he recognised the importance of saving lives and was overjoyed to hear that he matched with Jim – a fateful moment that came ten minutes after his wife Melanie revealed she was pregnant.

Stefan said: “Jim is such a positive and personable young man who always has a smile on his face, with an amazing family surrounding his mother Joanne Wood who we can all learn from when we get back to the little things in life that excite us. We should all be thankful for the things we take for granted in life and appreciate them.”

Every 20 minutes someone in the UK is diagnosed with blood cancer and only one in every three patients will find a matching stem cell donor within their family. That means the register of donors is all the more important to save thousands of patients’ lives – but numbers are currently far short of demand.

DKMS continues to feel the aftershocks of the pandemic, with registrations down 50 per cent compared to pre-pandemic numbers.

Although young men’s high stem cell production makes them the best potential donors – used in 70 per cent of transplants – they are severely unrepresented on the register. Ages 18-30 make up just seven per cent of listed donors in the UK.

Registering takes just a few minutes and could save someone’s life via a medical process which in most cases is as simple as donating blood.

If you are aged between 17 and 55 and in general good health, go to dkms.org.uk for more details.

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