A four-year-old boy suffering from a rare, hemophilia-like disease is thanking donors at a Vancouver blood donation clinic for helping to keep him alive.
Luke Feist has a condition called factor V deficiency, which means he's missing an essential blood protein that helps clots form after injuries. Almost any time he gets a bump, bruise or scratch, he needs a transfusion.
He and his family visited the Canadian Blood Services clinic on Oak Street Monday to express their gratitude for those transfusions in person.
"Thanks for donating your blood," Luke told people as they made their donations.
The Feist family found out about Luke's condition by accident two years ago.
"Our nanny had called us and said, ‘He's cut his lip and he won't stop bleeding.' Then he fell asleep and started vomiting up blood," dad Darryl Feist said.
The family says Luke is one of just six severe cases in Canada -- both parents need to be carriers for the disease to be expressed.
Even though Canadian Blood Services estimates that one out of every two Canadians is eligible to give blood, only one person in 60 actually does.
"Donating blood is one of those things that we all have the best of intentions to do, and it's about actually making the time to visit a clinic and roll up your sleeve," said Ariella Eini of Canadian Blood Services.
Blood supplies tend to dwindle during the holidays, but for the people donating at the Oak Street clinic, donating is too important to let slide.
"I'm a student, so sometimes I can't do it because of school, but it's really important to me to be able to donate blood, since I'm healthy enough," donor Sydney Doberstein said.
In a chair nearby, Jacky Li told CTV News, "I can contribute to people. That's something we should do more often."
With a report from CTV British Columbia's Peter Grainger
