Cancer survivor's tears at meeting stem cell donor

A man whose life was saved by a stem cell donation has said there were "plenty of tears" when he met the donor for the first time at a surprise event.

Stephen Cutts, 53, from Sheffield, thought he was attending his wedding anniversary party earlier this month, but donor Kevin McNicholl, 24, had been invited by Cutts' wife to the event.

Cutts was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia in April 2023 and his treatment had included seven rounds of chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant from an anonymous donor.

After the successful transplant, Cutts and McNicholl communicated, first anonymously and then over the phone, and Cutts said as soon as he saw McNicholl at the event, "I knew it was him".

"I hugged him, we all did. There were plenty of tears," he said.

Cutts, a retired surgical instrument maker, said: "Kevin is the nicest person I've ever met.

"To go through what he did for nothing, and for someone he didn't know, was incredible. 

"He will always be part of our lives."

McNicholl, a software engineer from Belfast, said he was just 21 years old when he was told his stem cells were a match with Cutts.

"When I found out I was a match, my instant reaction was I wanted to do it," he explained.

He said that after the transplant, he often thought about the recipient and how he was doing.

"It was an incredible feeling when I met Stephen," he said.

"He's one of the strongest people I've ever met.

"Nothing that I had to do compares in the slightest to what he had to go through."

McNicholl said he had signed up to the Anthony Nolan register when he was 17 as part of a recruitment drive at his local Gaelic football club in Magherafelt, County Londonderry.

He said he now often urged clubs and organisations to continue to run these drives.

"You never know if your name will come up and, if it does, you have the chance to save someone's life," he said.

Charlotte Cunliffe, director of register development at Anthony Nolan, said: "It's important we recruit young people to the register.

"People under 30 provide three-quarters of stem cell donations for UK patients, yet they represent just 40% of our register.

"That gap means we must continue recruiting young people like Kevin so we can continue to save lives through stem cells."

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