Bone Marrow Recipient Meets Donor Who Saved His Life

— -- Two men who changed each other’s lives forever by being on the giving and receiving ends of a bone marrow transplant met for the first time today and had their first chance to say, “Thank you,” face-to-face.

“Thank you so much,” Joe Yannantuono, 33, said to his bone marrow donor, Justin Jenkins, 35, as he embraced him in a hug in a live, emotional meeting on “Good Morning America.”

Yannantuono, not very long ago, was waging a two-year long battle for his life against stage 4 lymphoma.

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As his wife, Christine Buono, and his 4-year-old son, JJ Yannantuono, stood by his side, the family, from Staten Island, N.Y., got the unbelievable news that a man in Texas, a stranger, was a rare 10 for 10 genetic bone marrow match.

That stranger in Texas, Jenkins, of Dallas, had registered to be a bone marrow donor by chance 15 years ago when he was 21-years-old and donated blood because they were offering free snacks.

Soon after Jenkins was found to be a match, his stem cells were transported by airplane to New York and transplanted into Yannatuono’s body in December 2012 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

For more than one year after the successful transplant, Yannantuono had no idea whose cells he was now carrying in his body.

As Yannantuono was rebuilding his life, Jenkins’ life was thrown a tragic curveball. His mother, who raised him on her own and had been a big part of his donation journey, was killed in a car crash.

Just days after his mother’s death, in April of this year, Yannantuono called Jenkins as they found out each other’s identities, giving Jenkins something to help pull him through his grief.

“I was in a dark spot when we got all your information and you helped pull me out of that,” Jenkins said to Yannantuono on “GMA.” “To lose somebody you love but to gain a whole family, it’s touching.”

Jenkins says he is now “doing fine,” and focusing on the man to whom he gave new life.

“My life continues on normal. I don’t have to worry about remission or anything like that,” he said. “My only concern that I worry about every day is Joe. He’s got JJ.”

For Yannantuono’s family, there can never be enough words, they say, to thank Jenkins.

“This is incredible. To do that for somebody you’ve never met,” said Yannantuono’s wife, Christine. “I don’t know how we can thank you enough, for giving JJ and myself a future with Joe.”

“We’re thankful to everybody,” she said.

To learn more about bone marrow donation with Be the Match, CLICK HERE.