On Saturday, June 6, nearly three dozen people stepped carefully Over The Edge of River House and, one by one, rappelled down more than 450 feet to the ground below.

Besides experiencing the thrill of a lifetime, they also were helping provide the chance of a lifetime to people who need marrow transplants, because the money they donated to take part in Over The Edge will help pay for tissue-type testing for marrow donors recruited for the international Be The Match Registry by Michigan Community Blood Centers.

Nobody understands the importance of marrow donor testing better than 15-year-old Patrick Mancuso of Nolanville, Texas, who was among the people going Over The Edge on June 6.

Patrick Mancuso beginning of his 450-foot rappel down the side of Riverhouse Condominiums in Grand Rapids.

Patrick owes his life to the marrow transplant he had in April, 2007, to combat acute myelogenous leukemia. Chemotherapy hadn’t worked. A marrow transplant represented Patrick’s best hope for beating the aggressive disease – but nobody in his family was a close match for his tissue type. An exhaustive search of the National Marrow Donor Program’s Be The Match Registry turned up a woman from Lowell, Michigan who was a perfect match. Through Michigan Community Blood Centers, she donated marrow stem cells for Patrick’s transplant.

It worked. Patrick grew better and stronger. And at last, on Friday, June 5, 2009, during the media day that preceded Over The Edge, he got to meet Sarah VanBree, the woman who saved his life.

“I felt nervous and excited at the same time,” Patrick said. “I thought it was going to be more emotional, but it was more excitement than anything.”

“I think it’s so cool!” said Sarah after meeting Patrick. “You always wonder how they’re doing, and he’s doing great. That’s a big plus.”

Sarah VanBree and Patrick Mancuso shared their stories with Michigan Community Blood Centers staff as well as local media on June 5, 2009.

“It feels like after everything we’ve been through, it’s kind of come full circle,” said Simone Mancuso, Patrick’s mother. “Meeting the donor, and hopefully moving on, and being able to thank Sarah for what she did. Patrick would not be here if she wouldn’t have done what she did and wouldn’t have done it as quick as she did.”

To celebrate his continuing recovery and raise awareness of the need for marrow donors, Patrick decided to take advantage of the opportunity to make a controlled-descent rappel from the top of River House.

“It’s a lot harder than it looks,” he said, a bit winded after completing his rappel. “But it was a blast.”

Over the Edge, a firm specializing in extreme rappel events, made all the technical arrangements and coordinated all the participants’ trips down the rope from the roof of River House Condominiums. WOOD-TV8, WZZM-TV13, WXMI-FOX17, WGRD, WOOD-AM1300, WTRV “The River”, WLHT, and other area media helped raise awareness of this event.

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