Robert Moulton, Lelena Zelinka cruise to victory at Back Mountain Catholic Youth 5K Run

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<p>LARKSVILLE &#8212; It&#8217;s a typical Wyoming Valley neighborhood. The buildings are pretty close together and traffic flows by every day.</p><p>It&#8217;s the kind of neighborhood anyone could live in, even a hero.</p><p>Korbin Keene lives in this neighborhood on Wilson Street in Larksville. I know the neighborhood because my godparents &#8212; John and Barbara Kraszewski &#8212; lived a couple of blocks away.</p><p>I talked to Korbin earlier this week. I wanted to hear his story. It&#8217;s heroic, for sure.</p><p>Korbin told me he was always brought up to help others, like holding a door open for others to enter.</p><p>In late September, Korbin, a 23-year-old physical therapy doctoral candidate at Gannon University in Erie, held the door of life open to someone he has never met and perhaps never will.</p><p>Like I said, when you drive through a neighborhood like this, you really never know who lives in those houses and apartment buildings.</p><p>And I am certain the person who was the recipient of Korbin Keene&#8217;s heroics has driven through similar neighborhoods, never giving a second thought to who might reside in any of the houses and buildings along the way.</p><p>So let me tell you about Korbin&#8217;s heroics.</p><p>Korbin was volunteering at Gannon, passing out information about becoming a bone marrow donor. Korbin was eager to sign up as many donors as possible &#8212; and he did, starting with himself.</p><p>Korbin called his mom, Karen, who is a registered nurse, to tell her of his decision. It turns out, unbeknownst to Korbin, that his mother had signed up on the BeTheMatch.com registry two years before Korbin.</p><p>Great minds and great hearts think alike.</p><p>So when Korbin told his mom that he wanted to sign up, she drove to Erie and took him to the Cleveland Clinic to get on the Bone Marrow Registry.</p><p>Finding matches for bone marrow transplants can be difficult. Karen has been waiting four years to donate without a call. Korbin has been called twice, the first time was cancelled for reasons unknown.</p><p>The second call came in late September and Korbin donated his bone marrow to a person he doesn&#8217;t know and may never meet.</p><p>But none of that mattered to Korbin. He will always know that his action saved another person&#8217;s life.</p><p>&#8220;My mindset was that I was saving someone&#8217;s life and that&#8217;s good enough for me.&#8221; he told me.</p><p>Korbin will soon be a physical therapist. He did his undergraduate studies at The University of Pittsburgh-Bradford campus. A graduate of Wyoming Valley West High School, Korbin also studied one year at King&#8217;s College.</p><p>Korbin told me he always wants to help people in any way, big or small. He said it makes him feel good to be able to help others. The person who received his bone marrow was helped in a very big way.</p><p>Korbin hopes to one day meet the person he helped, but that won&#8217;t be for at least a year and it will be up to the recipient if he or she wants to meet Korbin. And Korbin understands that.</p><p>&#8220;The other person is going through a lot more than me,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Korbin said the procedure took about an hour to remove his bone marrow. He showed me the tiny holes on his lower back where they went in to extract his marrow from his hip bones. He said he remembers the very big needle that was used to extract the bone marrow.</p><p>Korbin said he was in recovery for more than six hours and he remembers a lot of pain. He said his neck still gets sore, a residual from the procedure. Being a young man with very strong, thick bones, Korbin&#8217;s marrow will replenish itself quickly.</p><p>Korbin said patients with serious blood disorders can&#8217;t regenerate their bone marrow.</p><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s why I gave mine and mine will be regenerating for the recipient,&#8221; he said.</p><p>Korbin doesn&#8217;t know anything about the recipient. He doesn&#8217;t know if he or she has a family, is married or has children. He hopes to learn all that some day.</p><p>But it didn&#8217;t matter to Korbin. All he knew was that his donation could save someone&#8217;s life.</p><p>And Korbin was not compensated for his donation. He said he did get a mileage reimbursement for traveling to Cleveland from Erie.</p><p>Korbin&#8217;s parents, Karen and Joe Keene, are very proud of their son. Neiher could find adequate words to describe their feelings, but &#8220;selfless&#8221; and &#8220;amazing&#8221; seem appropriate.</p><p>According to the BeTheMatch.com registry website:</p><p>&#8226; Every three minutes, one person is diagnosed with a blood cancer.</p><p>&#8226; Every 10 minutes, someone dies from a blood cancer. That&#8217;s 148 people each day.</p><p>&#8226; 70 percent of all patients who need a transplant don&#8217;t have a matched donor in their family.</p><p>&#8226; A patient&#8217;s likelihood of finding a matching donor on the registry is estimated to range from 66-97 percent, depending on race and ethnicity.</p><p>The website states people like you and Korbin are the cure for the recipients.</p><p>These cures, these heroes, could live in your neighborhood.</p><p>And they could be waiting to hold the door of life open for you.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Bill O&#8217;Boyle </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_OBoyle_Columnshot-1-10.jpg</photo0><caption0>Bill O&#8217;Boyle </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_infocus_keene1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Bone marrow donor Korbin Keene, center, with his parents Karen and Joe. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_infocus_keene1.jpg</photo1><caption1>Bone marrow donor Korbin Keene, center, with his parents Karen and Joe. </caption1><photoCredit1>Pete G. Wilcox | Times Leader </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>Bill O&#8217;Boyle</p><p>In Focus</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Bill O&#8217;Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

In Focus: Larksville man holds the door of life open for a stranger in need