Principal's Selfless Act May Have Cost Him His Life

A principal told his High School newspaper: "If it’s just a little bit of pain for a little bit of time that can give someone years of joy, it’s all worth it." That was in february, right before he went into surgery to donate bone marrow to a 14 year old boy. He slipped into a coma and never recovered and died this week. Typically, bone marrow donation is a low risk donation. only 2.4% experience a serious complication. The principal was doing this procedure not for one of his students but for a 14 year old in France. Apparently, he had sleep apnea that he developed during his time in the military, and would have been too dangerous to put him under general anesthesia, and since he's a carrier for sickle cell anemia, doctors also couldn't harvest stem cells intravenously. Ultimately, he was put under local anesthesia as doctors extracted the bone marrow.