Blood cancer survivor paying it forward at blood drive in Lake Barrington

A bone marrow donation helped Carter Bailey beat blood cancer two years ago and he has been paying it forward ever since.

"Someone saved my life and now I want to give back and help potentially save someone else," said Bailey, a Barrington High School grad who is now a sophomore at Indiana University Bloomington.

Bailey and his family hosted the Carter Strong Blood & Bone Marrow Registry Drive at the Barrington Countryside Fire Protection District in Lake Barrington on Saturday. LifeSource ran the blood drive and Be The Match ran the bone marrow donor registry.

Carter's mom Celeste Bailey said pretty much every seat in the firehouse for people donating blood was filled throughout the morning. She said this was the fourth event they'd had for Carter since he finished chemotherapy in the summer of 2014. They hosted the first drive on the 100th day after he finished treatments, because that was the day the doctors said his immune system would have recovered enough to be able to go back to living a normal life.

Carter's dad Jim Bailey said that probably two-thirds of the people who attended the event were affiliated with CrossFit Barrington. He said the gym community has provided support for Carter and their family throughout his cancer. The gym hosted two of the previous Carter Strong drives and even came up with the "Carter Strong" name and had T-shirts printed.

Carter Bailey said when he was in the hospital he received about 90 units of donated blood and he wanted to give back. In addition to hosting the drives, he works for the Indiana University Bloomington chapter of Be The Match and said they recently signed up 140 people to go on the bone marrow donor registry.