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    Giving a stranger a new life: One student's story about donating stem cells

    Mick Chivers signed up to give stem cells. When it came time to help an elderly man with leukemia, the 20-year-old didn't let multiple setbacks stop him from giving a stranger a second chance at life.
    by Dustin Jones Apr 24, 2022 5 minutes
    The initial procedure involved an IV in each of Mick Chivers' arms, but veins in his right side refused to take the needle over 13 attempts. As a result, the nurses had to consider more invasive options.

    Mick Chivers, a 20-year-old pre-med student at Brown University, was committed to helping a man he didn't know.

    The plan was to donate his stem cells — but things weren't going as planned. The standard approach wasn't working.

    Staff at the Rhode Island Blood Center were trying to extract stem cells from Chivers' blood. They tried 13 times but couldn't get an IV to take to the veins in his right arm.

    After so many attempts, most people might call the whole thing off. It was, after all, an anonymous donation for someone he might never meet.

    There was another option: place a small tube near the entrance of his heart by inserting it through a vein in his chest or neck to get the blood that way. But there were no facilities in the area with an opening for that particular procedure,

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