Cancer survivor, 20, spent seven years raising £150k to pay NHS back for life-saving transplant

Andrew Davies has raised £150,000 for Sheffield Children’s Hospital
Sheffield Children’s Hospital
Katy Clifton26 January 2019

A 20-year-old cancer survivor who has devoted the past seven years to paying back the NHS for his life-saving bone marrow transplant has reached his £150,000 target.

Student Andrew Davies was just 13 years old when he was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, a rare and aggressive form of blood cancer which left him in need of a bone marrow transplant.

Andrew later asked his nurse how much the operation, which had been successful, cost. When she told him around £150,000, the teenager pledged to raise the money back for the NHS.

Seven years later, Andrew has now reached his fundraising target for Sheffield Children's Hospital and Charity, with the money raised going towards its cancer ward and leukaemia research.

Andrew, from Old Brampton, Derbyshire, raised the funds through a number of sponsored walks and bike rides, one of which involved cycling 215 miles from Liverpool to Skegness.

He also raised more than £4,000 with an 81-mile walk from Ilkley, West Yorkshire, to Windermere, Cumbria.

After reaching his target, Sheffield Children’s Hospital and Charity threw the Liverpool John Moores University student a surprise party, during which he was hailed an “inspirational young man”.

Andrew has spent seven years paying back the NHS for his life-saving transplant
Sheffield Children’s Hospital

Standing in the cancer ward where his life was saved in 2012, Andrew said: “To be honest it’s very nice to have you here today but in reality if it wasn’t for the service and care that I got from all of you guys all those years ago now and your continued support none of this would have been able to happen in the first place."

“Your day-to-day work and everything you do makes this your achievement as much as it is mine," he added as he held back tears.

Speaking to Mail Online about his cancer experience, Andrew said: “It was absolutely gruelling. My hair fell out, I was having terrible nose bleeds, I’d really struggle to eat and so I lost quite a lot of weight.

“To know that I’m contributing to making a real difference to the lives of other patients that are in similar positions to the one I was once in is fantastic.”

Posting on Facebook, a spokesman for Sheffield Children’s Hospital and Charity wrote: “We can’t thank you enough Andrew, you are amazing.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in