Zully Broussard wanted to help someone. She decided to donate a kidney. She didn’t help just one person: Her generous donation saved six lives.
Mrs. Broussard was the “Good Samaritan donor” whose contribution started a kidney swap. Over the last decade, kidney swaps have become more common. The process creates a chain of organ trades. This allows several people in need of transplants to get them.
Say your relative needs a kidney. You want to help, but you are not a match. You will probably match someone in need, somewhere. It could be a stranger. You agree to donate. In return, someone else will also donate a kidney. Maybe that one will match your relative—or yet another stranger.
Beginning with the Good Samaritan, each donor’s information is entered into a computer program. The computer compares recipients’ blood types, ages, weight, and antibodies to donors. The closer the match, the better chance each recipient’s body will accept the donor kidney. The program generates a chain of organ hand-offs.
Kidneys from live donors work best. They usually last about twice as long as kidneys from cadavers.
The swap Mrs. Broussard started involved six donors and six recipients. All 12 surgeries took place over two days at California Pacific Medical Center. It was the largest kidney donation chain in that hospital’s history.
But it’s nowhere near the largest in history. That title belongs to Chain 124. In 2011, 60 people participated. Over four months, in 17 surgery centers in 11 states, 30 people received new kidneys from 30 donors. Healthy kidneys were surgically removed, rushed to airports, and flown around the country in ice-filled boxes. The boxes had GPS devices inside in case some got lost.
Usually donations are anonymous. But in a 2012 article in the New York Times, most members of Chain 124 agreed to be revealed. This chain began with Good Samaritan donor Rick Ruzzamenti in California on August 15. His kidney went to a 66-year-old man in New Jersey. In return, that man’s niece donated a kidney to a woman in Madison, Wisconsin. On and on the chain went. It ended with Donald Terry on December 20.
“Good Samaritan donors” give their kidneys expecting nothing in return. That name comes from the Bible story. In it, a Samaritan man rescued a Jewish man who had been robbed and badly beaten. The Samaritan also gave his own money for the Jewish man’s care.
God doesn’t call all of us to be organ donors. But we are to be good neighbors. We can all look for ways to help those who are in need. (Luke 10:37)
