New Jersey principal with a giving heart dies after bone marrow procedure to help stranger

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A beloved Westfield, N.J., educator, who went into a coma after he donated bone marrow to help a stranger in another country, has died.

Derrick Nelson, 44, lost his life Sunday a month after going into a cardiac arrest as a result of the bone marrow transplant procedure, NJ.com reports.

Nelson, who was principal of Westfield High School, decided earlier this year to help save the life of a 14-year-old teen in France who he’d never met and was in need of a bone marrow infusion, the New York Daily News reported. Nelson was matched with the teen through Be the Match, the national bone marrow donor program database, in October 2018.

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He was contacted and within a few months was preparing for surgery to give his stem cells to the teenager across the Atlantic.

Nelson had sleep apnea, which prevented him from operating under general anesthesia, so the doctors tried a different method that used intravenous therapy to complete the bone marrow transplant.

Also at a physical exam in Jan., Nelson learned that he carried sickle cell trait. Although it wasn’t sickle cell anemia, the condition could make the procedure dangerous.

“I said well I don’t have sickle cell, but I have the sickle cell trait,” Nelson told Hi’s Eye, the Westfield High School student-run newspaper in February. “[The doctors] said, ‘Well if you have the trait, you can’t do stem cell.’ ”

Still he pressed on and the doctors came up with a different method they could use to extract the bone marrow.

During the procedure, “[the doctors would] take the blood out of one arm, send that blood to the centrifuge where they separate the plasma from the stem cell, then put the blood back in my arm through the other IV,” Nelson explained to Hi’s Eye.

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Nelson reportedly was optimistic about his lifegiving gesture, saying: “If it’s just a little bit of pain for a little bit of time that can give someone years of joy, it’s all worth it.”

However, during surgery Nelson suffered a cardiac arrest and he soon slipped into a coma.

“After the procedure he did, he couldn’t speak and was lying in the bed,” his father, Willie, told NJ.com. “His eyes were open and he realized who we were. But he couldn’t move. He never spoke again.”

Nelson’s family kept vigil at his bedside for more than a month after he slipped into the coma. The family held out hope for their son.

“We really don’t know the full story of what happened,” Willie Nelson said. “We were expecting him to come out of the coma he was in. But he didn’t make it.”

Students and faculty at Westfield High showed an outpouring of emotion, but also of appreciation for the principal.

“I just always remember him with a smile on his face at the games and he was very energetic,” said Emma Roth, 17, a junior at Westfield. “He was different from any other principal I’ve ever had.”

“I always knew that he was a great man. He was the type of man that used authority but was still such an approachable man. I can’t name a single person that didn’t like him,” said Marcela Avans, 16 also a Westfield junior. “When I found out that he was first ill, it broke my heart because he was helping someone, but it really made me respect him and appreciate his service to the community even more.”

The love Nelson garnered was also shared on social media.

Nelson was a 20-year military vet who served as an officer in the Army Reserve. According to the Associated Press, he had recently reenlisted.

A Change.org petition has been circulated to rename Westfield High School for Nelson. Almost 8,000 of the requested 10,000 people have signed it.