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Captain David Whitson, 44, was identified with acute myeloid leukemia in 2016 and was given a 5% likelihood of survival.
A United Airways pilot reunited with the girl who saved his life eight years in the past, stunning her on a flight final week. Captain David Whitson was identified with Acute Myeloid Leukemia in 2016 and was given a 5% likelihood of survival. Allie Reimold, then 22, was a match for his bone marrow transplant and donated her stem cells, saving his life. Final week, as Allie boarded her flight in Houston, she had no concept David was close by. It had been 4 years since their final assembly and almost eight years since she helped David overcome the life-threatening sickness.
Again in 2016, David, a wholesome 44-year-old, was struck with extreme signs that led to the devastating prognosis, needing a bone marrow transplant. With no appropriate match in his household, medical doctors turned to donor registries, the place Allie’s profile got here up as an ideal match. Allie, then a behavioural sciences undergraduate, had joined the Nationwide Marrow Donor Programme throughout a campus occasion. When requested to donate, she agreed, present process a non-invasive process to offer stem cells. These have been transplanted into David’s physique on December 21, 2016, successfully changing his diseased blood with wholesome cells.
Over time, David and Allie shaped an in depth bond. They first met in 2018 and have stayed in contact via social media and annual reunions. As a gesture of gratitude, David prolonged his airline journey advantages to Allie, permitting her to journey like household.
Final week, David, who had simply piloted a flight to Houston, seen via his airline app that Allie was close by and about to board Flight 2223. In a race in opposition to time, he coordinated with the flight crew and dashed throughout the airport to shock her.
As soon as aboard, David took to the aircraft’s PA system to share their exceptional story with passengers, calling Allie “the true hero of this story.” He then walked over to embrace her, drawing applause from everybody on board. “It’s not daily you may hug somebody who saved your life,” David instructed CNN.
For Allie, now a most cancers prevention researcher, the second was particularly significant. Their reunion got here simply days earlier than the eighth anniversary of David’s transplant.