Girl who inspired 'Hallie's Heroes' finds a possible bone marrow match

DENTON, Texas - A girl in Denton with a rare blood disorder may have finally found a match for a bone marrow transplant.

“Now this is the part of my speech where I ask you to swab because I don’t have a bone marrow match. But today I’m happy to announce that a possible match has been found,” Hallie Barnard announced on Facebook.

A group called Hallie’s Heroes rallied around the 10-year-old girl several years ago. She was diagnosed with a rare blood disease called Diamond Blackfan Anemia when she was just a year old.

"I was like, is this really happening. Mom are you lying to me," Hallie said.

Last year the Fort Worth Police Department released a video with Hallie encouraging people to get swabbed and join the bone marrow registry. The department also encourages its new recruits to get tested and one of them was a match for a little boy in Italy.

Hallie's mom said the match is a milestone, but there's still work to do.

"We have never gotten this far in the process and its to know if our donor's going to do it, if the doctors say its the right time for Hallie. We're just waiting until we hear what the doctors want to do next," said Elyce Barnard.

The post on Facebook said there are still a lot of steps involved and statistics show that 50 percent of donors back out.

No matter what, Hallie's Heroes will continue to work toward finding matches for others. Over the past few years, they have arranged for more than 6,000 people to be tested with a painless cheek swab. So far that has resulted in 53 matches.

If you’d like to get a simple and free swab in the mail, visit getinvolved.dkms.org/fundraiser/1377738.