FULLERTON : Marrow-Donor Call Brings Big Response

So many people offered to be tested Monday as potential bone-marrow donors for a 9-year-old Placentia girl that some had to be turned away when money for the testing ran out, an organizer said.

The Cal State Fullerton women’s softball team held the five-hour blood-testing drive on campus to find a compatible marrow donor for Christina Schnabl, a third-grader at Wagner Elementary School in Placentia who is hospitalized with leukemia. She is in the intensive care unit of Western Medical Center-Santa Ana.

After 434 people gave blood samples Monday, the group ran out of money to have the blood tested, said Jill Matyuch, a senior at Cal State Fullerton who helped organize the drive.

“We had to turn the football team away,” she said. “They came in at 2:45, and we ran out of funds right there.”

Each blood sample costs about $75 to test for bone-marrow compatibility. The money for Monday’s drive was raised by the softball team and by a $20,000 donation from Allstate Insurance Cos., Matyuch said. People giving blood samples Monday also donated $4,978, she said.

Christina was the bat girl for the university’s softball team, so team members have rallied to find a marrow donor for her. Only about 1 in 20,000 people have compatible bone marrow for a successful transplant, so massive marrow testing drives are required.