Vic: Teenage rockers Killing Heidi give kids with cancer a treat

AAP General News (Australia)
12-20-2000
Vic: Teenage rockers Killing Heidi give kids with cancer a treat

MELBOURNE, Dec 20 AAP - Teenage rockers Killing Heidi today treated kids with cancer
to a special Christmas concert at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne.

Up to 100 children with cancer and other life-threatening blood disorders were joined
by their families as they swayed and clicked their fingers to the ARIA award winning music.

Tinsel draped around drips and monitors, paper chains hanging from the ceiling and
paintings daubed on the walls added to the festive spirit in the oncology and haematology
outpatients department.

Four-year-old Sean Marantelli, who suffers leukaemia and sat patiently hooked up to
a monitor and a drip during the 20-minute concert, is one of Ella and Jesse Hooper's biggest
fans.

"He knows all of their songs and watches them on television and has their album," his
sister Shannon Power said.

Sean, who was diagnosed 11-and-a-half weeks ago, has been at the hospital for treatment
almost every week.

Stefan Crimmins, 14, who also has leukaemia, took the opportunity to follow in the
band's footsteps and picked up a guitar and strummed a few tunes.

In addition to the private concert, a number of kids and their oncology doctors parachuted
from a plane into the grounds behind the hospital.

AAP st/clr/cjh

KEYWORD: HEIDI WITH PICS

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