An emotional first meeting took place at the Ottawa airport on Wednesday between an Ontario girl and a German man who donated bone marrow for her life-saving transplant.

“It’s a special feeling,” said Alexander Türk after he was greeted with cheers and applause as he descended the steps at the airport. “We (have been) waiting a long time for this moment. It’s good to be here now in Canada.”

In 2013, Mackenzie Curran was a high-energy academic and basketball star at her Kingston, Ont., high school.

But Curran, who was 16 at the time, suddenly began to experience extreme fatigue. Doctors first thought she had a virus that would pass.

“One morning after one of my practices, I couldn’t physically get up out of bed,” Curran said. “That’s when we went to my family doctor and we did the first blood test which noticed that the white blood cells were really low.

Curran was told the illness would get better on its own.

But six months later, she was diagnosed with a rare blood disorder that was quickly evolving into acute myeloid leukemia – a form of cancer that causes rapid growth of abnormal white blood cells that accumulate in the bone marrow and interfere with the production of normal blood cells. Curran needed a bone marrow transplant.

Her disease was so aggressive that when a marrow match wasn’t found in her family or the entire country, Curran was quickly moved to the top of an international bone marrow transplant registry.

That’s when Türk stepped in.

Türk was already part of the international marrow transplant registry. When he learned that he was a match for Curran, he decided to donate his bone marrow.

After an emotional first meeting on Wednesday, Curran said she considers herself lucky to have found Turk.

“It’s just overwhelming to finally be able to say thank you to Alexander,” Curran said.

However, fewer than half of people who need bone marrow transplants actually get one.

And Curran is using the publicity to encourage more people to become donors.

“There’s such a big opportunity help other people by signing up and you might not know who that person is right away, but eventually, you might be able to meet that person,” she said.

Türk said he will be in Canada for two weeks. The pair is set to meet with Prime Minster Justin Trudeau on Thursday.

With a report from CTV Ottawa