FULLERTON : Lines Form at Hospital to Help Teen

Ellen O’Hanlon and many of the others don’t know Brandon Oba. They just wanted to help.

So for several hours Wednesday, O’Hanlon and the others lined up at St. Jude Hospital and Rehabilitation Center to have their blood tested--all on the outside chance that they can save 16-year-old Brandon’s life.

“It doesn’t hurt that bad,” said O’Hanlon, 39, a hospital secretary and one of 376 people who gave blood in the hope of becoming a bone-marrow donor for the son of fellow employee Steve Oba.

Brandon suffers from a form of leukemia that is fatal within two to five years without a marrow transplant. Previous searches for a donor with Brandon’s marrow type have been unsuccessful.

A senior at Brea-Olinda High School, Brandon was diagnosed as having leukemia in February, 1988, his father said.

“He’s been going up and down,” said Oba, 44.

The blood samples collected in the drive were flown to North Carolina Wednesday night, where they will be tested to see if a match can be found for Brandon.

Only about 1 in every 20,000 people will have the type of blood antigen needed for a successful marrow transplant, said Judi Brenner, a friend of the Oba family who helped coordinate Wednesday’s search.

“Yes, it’s 1 in 20,000,” she said. “But it only takes one.”

Testing each sample costs $75, but the cost will be picked up by the hospital, said Mark Jablonski, hospital personnel director. Hospital volunteers, nurses and others donated their time to help in the drive, held in a meeting room next to the hospital’s cafeteria.

O’Hanlon said she doesn’t know the Obas, but gave her blood to check for a possible match because “the employees at this hospital are very, very close.”

“I have three daughters and I would think if they were in the same situation (as Brandon), it would be wonderful if people would do this,” she said.

Results of the blood tests won’t be known for about three weeks, Brenner said. The blood antigen types will be added to the National Marrow Donor Registry in St. Paul, Minn., a computerized database of potential donors and people needing a transplant.

Previous searches for a marrow donor were conducted at Brea Community Hospital, which tested about 125 of its employees in September, and in a community drive in Brea, which tested about 700 people.

Hospital employees tested Wednesday will be added to the national donor bank even if they don’t match Brandon, Brenner said.

Janice McGuire, 29, a nurse in the hospital’s intensive care unit, said she wanted to be tested to help Brandon or someone else needing a marrow transplant.

“A lot of the time, you try so hard to save somebody’s life (in the intensive-care unit) and you just can’t,” she said. Being tested, she said, is “the opportunity to give something that can save somebody’s life.”