Toddler meets 24 strangers who helped save her life

They came from different backgrounds — one was a UCLA student, another the organizer of blood drives at her office — and it was their selflessness that brought them together.

Recently, a celebration was held at UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital for 2-year-old Skye Savren-McCormick and 24 of the 71 strangers who helped save her life. When Savren-McCormick was four months old, she had to undergo her first blood and platelet transfusion, and when she turned 1, doctors discovered she had a rare form of cancer called juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia. Without blood transfusions "she wouldn't have made it," her mother, Talia Savren-McCormick, told Today. "We used to call it life in a bag."

Over the course of her treatment, Savren-McCormick needed 77 units of blood, which were donated by 71 different people, as well as three bone marrow transplants. At one point, she was getting blood platelets daily and blood transfusions two to three times a week, which is why Talia Savren-McCormick was so grateful to the 24 donors she was able to meet. "Thank you doesn't begin to describe the gratitude we feel," she said. "They were a part of saving her life." Skye Savren-McCormick is cancer-free now, and once her immune system recovers, she'll head to preschool.

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