Man who saved a girl's life insists: I'm no hero

John Lloyd was back at work after donating two pints of bone marrow to an anonymous young girl. He was chosen from just over 400,000 names on the Anthony Nolan Trust's register as being the ideal match for the female. He said: "I don't look on it as being anything special. Everyone says I'm brave but it's something anyone can do. "The operation was not painful at all. On a scale of one to ten, I would say it's one-and-a-half to two. There's nothing to it." Robert Spigel, the trust's marketing manager, praised Mr Lloyd's actions. "Anyone who joins the trust's register does so because they are committed to saving the life of a stranger. "There is no vested interest in their action, no reward. It's purely a selfless act on their part. "If they are a match, the approach will come out of the blue. It's not planned at all," he said. About 800 donations are arranged each year. The trust's connections extend worldwide to mean Mr Lloyd's bone marrow could have saved the life of a patient in a country such as the USA or France. Mr Lloyd, 42, of Nyetimber Lane, joined the bone marrow donors' register in 1996 after a campaign by the trust. "I didn't know anyone affected by leukaemia or cancer in anyway," he said. "I just thought I wanted to be on the donor register." Mr Lloyd had been approached twice as a possible donor but the tests proved negative. The third contact from the trust came in January. Printing industry worker Mr Lloyd went to St Richard's Hospital at Chichester for blood tests. He heard within two weeks their results showed the prospect existed of a match. He was invited for further tests at a clinic in central London. These involved chest X-rays, an ECG and more blood tests. These confirmed the match and Mr Lloyd became a patient at The London Clinic on March 31. A half-hour operation the next day under general anaethestic saw his bone marrow taken from the back of his pelvis. He was discharged on April 2 with a couple of paracetamols and an anti-inflammatory drug. A week later and the only signs of the operation are two small puncture marks on his back. His initial tiredness after the operation eased to allow him to return to his normal routine little more than a week later. His initial rest period saw him watching a DVD handed out by the Anthony Nolan Trust about its work. The short film featured two people whose lives had been saved by the bone marrow transplants. "That's when it hit home to me what I had done and I started crying," he said, "thinking I had saved someone's life. "I would like to think that, if something happened to me, or my partner, her children or my children, someone would be there for them. "I'm sure most people would be happy to receive a transplant and they should be equally happy to give a donation as well." Mr Lloyd and his partner, Tracey Hill, plan to climb Ben Nevis in June to raise money for the Anthony Nolan Trust.