Victoria Rathmill, 17, becomes world’s youngest stem cell donor

A British teenager is making headlines for her record-breaking kindness.

Victoria Rathmill, 17, from Cheshire, England, has become the youngest person in the world to donate stem cells to a non-relative.

"It's quite shocking to think I’m the youngest-ever – you're never the first to do anything nowadays, it's all been done already," she told the Manchester Evening News.

At the age of 16, Victoria was inspired to sign up to be a donor after a family friend was diagnosed with leukaemia.

"At first I was like, 'I'll join when I’m 18, I’m not going to make any difference,' but then a friend of our family got ill and so I felt the need to join up," Victoria told AnthonyNolan.org.

"It was only a couple of weeks after I signed up that I told my mum. Anthony Nolan sent the spit kit out to me and she asked me what it was. Though she was taken aback a bit at first, she thought it was a nice thing to do, especially given our friend's experience."

A few short months later, she was called in to donate.

Victoria's mother, Paula Rathmill, says the family couldn't be prouder of her daughter's donation.

"Even though she's strong, what she's doing takes courage and she’s still only 17," Rathmill said.

"Victoria's always been headstrong and determined but it never really occurred to me to try and stop her from helping another person in their hour of need. It makes me very proud," she added.

Victoria called the procedure, which happened last month at the London Clinic, as "just like giving blood, really."

"Victoria's historic donation is genuinely impressive. It shows both what a special young woman she is, and how teenagers can be sufficiently mature, caring, and engaged with the world around them to help save an unwell stranger," Henry Braund, chief executive of the Anthony Nolan Blood Cancer Charity and Bone Marrow Register, one of the two registers in the world to accept donors younger than 18, said in a statement.

Victoria said she wouldn't hesitate to donate again:

"I would do it again. It's just a couple of days out of your life to save somebody else's."