Saints receiver Austin Carr saved a man’s life two years ago, and at the Super Bowl, they met.
The man was Roy Coe, and he was dying of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma until Carr gave Coe his bone marrow. Carr had been a football player at Northwestern in 2013 when he decided to join the bone marrow registry, and two years later he was contacted informing him that there was a match. Carr agreed to the procedure that would save the life of the match, who at the time was a complete stranger.
Coe says he’ll never forget that act of generosity from Carr.
“As ugly as the world can get, there are still beautiful things in it and beautiful people in it,” Coe told SI.com.
To prepare for the bone marrow procedure, Carr took a medication that increased the amount of marrow he produced but also caused him a lot of joint pain. And the procedure itself isn’t the most pleasant of experiences. But Carr said he did it because he prayed about it and concluded it was the right thing to do.
“Treat others as you want to be treated. I’m a Christian, and treat your neighbor as yourself is a core biblical belief.”