Bone marrow drive for CHP Officer

California Highway Patrol officers are coming together to help one of their own, holding a bone marrow drive up and down the state this week.

They’re trying to save someone, who wanted to do the same, for someone else. Wednesday’s drive was at the CHP office in Indio.

Throughout the day more than 30 people swabbed their cheeks to sign up for the bone marrow registry.

“Thousands of patients are looking for a match and less than half actually find their matching donor. It’s really critical that we get as many people onto the registry as possible,” said City of Hope’s Be the Match spokesperson Janet Higgins.

CHP Officer Keith Meter was a match for an 8-year-old girl in Orange County two years ago, but further testing uncovered he too had cancer.

“He found unfortunately he had more in common with her than he knew,” said CHP Public Information Officer Mike Radford.

Now, the 18 year CHP veteran needs a bone marrow transplant and a match of his own.

CHP has teamed up with City of Hope’s Be the Match to host drives all week long and all across the state.

“The CHP is really a big family, so for us to find out that one of our officers, a brother of ours, had this condition, it really hit us hard. That is why we are doing this event everywhere,” said Radford.

“I couldn’t be more thankful,” said Meter.

It takes about ten minutes for potential donors between the ages of 18-44 to sign up for the registry. It involves filling out paperwork and swabbing your cheek.

“A patient is more likely to find a match within their same race and ethnicity. That is why we do the cheek swab, we do a little tissue typing,” said Higgins.

If you are a match, donating is easier than it’s ever been. For most people, the process is much like how you would donate platelets.

“It is amazing the medical technology we have today. It is very doable to donate,” said Higgins.

All of it is done at no cost to the donor.

“What we need from you is a few hours from you and your cells,” said Higgins. “We want to find a match for Keith. We want to find a match for every one of our patients who needs one.”

If you missed the local event you can still sign up for the registry anytime by going to the Be the Match website. Click Here.