HUG BEST GIFT FOR VALLEY'S WHITE KNIGHT.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY

Irv Haecker sat in the lobby of Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center last week, just a few days before his 84th birthday, waiting for someone he hadn't seen in almost 15 years.

Daniel Bridge had been a youngster battling leukemia, clinging to life by a thread. Irv had come along and thrown him a lifeline.

"You waiting for someone, too?" Irv asked the woman sitting next to him.

"Yes, the same person you are: my son," Melissa Bridge said, hugging the white knight who donated the rare O-negative blood that kept her boy alive for more than two years while he waited for a bone marrow transplant.

Almost on cue, Daniel -- who just turned 20 and is doing just fine -- walked into the lobby with his father, Robert.

"This is Mr. Haecker, Daniel," Melissa said to him.

Daniel didn't bother with a handshake. He went straight for a hug.

"Thank you for the blood, sir," he said.

"You're welcome, son," Irv Haecker said with tears in his eyes, knowing that birthday presents just don't get any better than this.

Jenny Haecker could tell that Melissa Bridge was upset, that something was definitely wrong. Working in the same building of medical offices, the two nurses had become friendly over the years.

"She told me her 3-year-old son had leukemia and needed a blood transfusion every month to stay alive," Irv's daughter recalled.

"They had two donors, but had just lost one of them. She didn't know what they were going to do."

Jenny told Melissa she would talk to her father, whose O-negative blood was in high demand because it's relatively rare and can be used by anyone.

After hearing that night about the little boy diagnosed with leukemia who needed his blood, Irv weighed his decision for a nanosecond, then asked his daughter when the Bridge family needed him to start.

A few days later, Robert Bridge picked Irv up at his Sun Valley home and drove him to UCLA Medical Center, where the family's new white knight donated his blood, helping keep a precious son alive while the search for a bone marrow donor continued.

Every 56 days for more than two years, Irv and Robert made the six-hour round trip.

Even after Daniel underwent the successful bone marrow operation at age 6, Irv continued to give blood.

The Bridge family faced staggering medical bills, and every pint Irv donated helped pay down that bill.

"If a person can help someone live by simply donating a little blood, why wouldn't he?" Irv said last week, waiting for Daniel to arrive.

Irv eventually started giving blood at Saint Joseph after a relative became sick and needed transfusions of his O-negative blood. As of last week, he has donated 18 gallons.

"Every 56 days, like clockwork, Irv shows up to give blood that only about seven people in 100 have," says Josephine Panphinij, the head blood-donor nurse at Saint Joseph.

"He's an incredible, loving man who has helped save a lot of lives."

Last week, a couple of days before his 84th birthday, one of those he'd helped save stopped by to give Irv a hug and say thank you.

Birthday presents don't get any better than that.

dennis.mccarthy(at)dailynews.com

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Photo:

Irv Haecker, left, who donated blood for more than two years to help Daniel Bridge survive leukemia in early childhood, gets a hug from Bridge, now 20.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer