Giving the gift of life

One Palmer High School sophomore is making huge strides down her career path already -- and potentially saving lives in the process.

Brittany Heck, who just turned 16, knows she wants to go into a medical field in the future. But in the present, she's content trying to get people signed up for the bone marrow registry list, especially Alaska Natives.

"There are only 188 Alaska Natives on the entire registry," Heck explained. "You have to match nine genetic markers to be a match, and with only 188 Natives on the list, it's hard to come up with a match, if not impossible."

While the project is important to Heck, it is not personal -- she is not Native, and she doesn't know anyone who has suffered from bone marrow diseases. It's just that helping others comes naturally for Heck.

"I figured what better way to start working with medicine early than to organize something like this," Heck said. "I saw a blood drive poster and decided to get an organ and tissue drive organized for parent-teacher conferences at my school, and then I was looking up things on the Internet and found out there were only 188 Natives on the registry, and decided to do this.

"It was something I could do that could keep helping others for years," Heck said.

Brittany's mom, Esther, said the timing couldn't be better.

"April is National Donate Life month, too," Esther Heck said. "She really wanted to do something positive for the community, and organizing a minority marrow drive certainly helps."

Heck said she read stories about Rod Carew, a baseball Hall of Famer, and his daughter, who died at age 18 because a marrow match couldn't be found because of their diverse ethnic background. More than 70,000 people were tested as potential matches, but none could be found.

More than 70 percent of patients have to go outside their immediate family to find a match -- if a match can even be found.

"It was such a sad story and it made me think," Heck admitted.

The drive was held at the Alaska Job Corps Center last Thursday, and 26 people registered by filling out a health questionnaire and giving a small blood sample. Ten were Alaska Natives, two were American Indian and one person was of Middle Eastern descent.

Once Heck decided she wanted to hold a bone marrow registry drive, she contacted the Blood Bank of Alaska in Anchorage.

The Bloodmobile -- a mobile blood collection unit -- was going to be at the Job Corps Center, so Heck decided to work in conjunction with the blood drive.

Blood Bank of Alaska officials were happy with the results -- they told Heck that on a normal drive, they usually average about six marrow registers, while Heck had 26.

Heck also wanted to reward the potential donors, so she worked with Mary Percak-Dennett at the Tub House in Wasilla, who donated 31 one-hour hot tub coupons for those signing up for the registry.