Woman donates life-saving kidney to stranger she met in bar
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Steven Hanes, who is not pictured, has not sought further treatment since the incident. (iStock)
Kristin Day said it took just two hours of talking to a stranger she met in a bar to realize that she had to help him. Day, of Minnesota, noticed that the man had a port used for dialysis on his arm, and discovered that he needed a kidney transplant, Grand Forks Herald reported.
After that initial meeting, she secretly began undergoing testing to see if she was a donor match, finally letting him in on the secret a few steps later. The surgery was coordinated by Sanford Transplant in Fargo, which reportedly only counted six living donors in its program in 2017.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“It was just kind of crazy,” she told the news outlet. “We were at Nimrod at a bar. That’s just how it happened. We were in the right place at the right time.”
While her recipient, who was not named in the news report, had some reservations about Day making such a large sacrifice, she said she was “sure” about her decision.
“It was something I felt I had to see through,” she told Grand Forks Herald. “I felt like I was here to do this. I’ve never had that feeling before.”
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Day, whose recipient was receiving dialysis treatment every other day before the surgery, said she recovered within a few days, and that she hopes more people will volunteer to be living donors.
“I just say do it,” Day told the news outlet. “If you are healthy enough to give back, and you are able to and have people who would take care of you, I strongly suggest it. You feel good. I feel happy and I’m so happy he’s doing well. He gets his life back. That’s a pretty cool deal.”