Fire service celebrate decade in the fight against blood cancer
Scottish Fire & Rescue look for more to join their cause
Last updated 1st Oct 2019
Most people have it in them to save a life, with the call for more life saving stem-cell donations to help tackle blood cancers.
There are more donors needed to help the fight, with patients urgently awaiting stem cell transplants.
Scottish Fire and Rescue are celebrating 10 years of a very important partnership.
Service members are among those who've helped donate to Anthony Nolan, and when taking on blood cancer, the more donors there are, the better chance of success.
In July last year, fire officer Fraser Nixon offered a stranger with blood cancer a second chance at life when he made stem cell donation.
The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service Group Commander for Highland West made the potentially life-saving donation through charity Anthony Nolan, which uses its register to match stem cell donors to blood cancer patients in desperate need of a transplant.
Later this month, Anthony Nolan and the Fire Service mark a decade of their partnership which works to recruit potential stem cell donors such as Fraser.
Since the two have joined forces in 2009, the charity and Fire Service have been responsible for 53 potentially life-saving transplants.
In addition to his donation last summer, Fraser is also Vice Chair for the SFRS / Anthony Nolan partnership representing the North of Scotland, leading a team of dedicated volunteers hosting recruitment events in schools in the Highlands and across the North of Scotland.
In the 10 years SFRS has recruited 14,000 potential lifesavers nationwide, with there now 26 volunteer groups across Scotland.
The partnership was launched following the diagnosis of Ally Boyle - then Area Commander of Strathclyde Fire & Rescue - who was suffering myelodysplasia (a type of blood cancer).
He said: 'Being in the Fire Service taught me that there is always something you can do to help others but, more importantly, it showed me that by working together there is almost nothing that can't be accomplished. The partnership is a fantastic example of that'