Blood Drive Staged for Ailing Deputy
Sylvia Smith is going to fight for her life just as she fought to become a deputy sheriff.
A blood drive was held for Smith on Monday at Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic, one of 16 events staged throughout Los Angeles to help the 18-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
Smith, 45, was told in October that she has leukemia and needed a bone-marrow transplant. The blood drive helps to find a proper donor.
Without the new bone marrow, physicians have said, she has six months to live.
But Smith, the mother of two, said she faced tough odds at the sheriff’s academy. “I wanted that job more than anything,” said Smith, who is on medical leave from the East Los Angeles Sheriff’s station. “I’m a fighter, not a quitter.”
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