An Oklahoma man donates his kidney to his out-of-state coworker that he’d never met in person. In 2018, Jeanine Ramirez was surprised to learn during her annual physical that her kidneys were failing. She was completely asymptomatic, but a combination of medications had wreaked havoc on her kidneys and by June of 2021, her doctor told her that without a transplant, she’d only have six months to live.
Ramirez was understandably upset and concerned about what would happen with her 17-year-old daughter, so when her coworker, Jane Bridges, asked how things were, Ramirez told her everything. Bridges, 52, who lives in Melbourne, Florida, and has never met Ramirez face-to-face, immediately went online to see if she could be a donor. She wasn’t eligible, but she was still determined to help. She asked Ramirez for permission to email her contacts to see if anyone would step up to save her coworker. That email made it into the inbox of Jimmie Deibert.
Deibert had worked with Ramirez for more than a decade, and even though they’d also never met in person, he felt drawn to help her. He started the process to see if he was a match, and by September he received the news that he was. Deibert and his wife flew to Atlanta the next month to undergo more tests and he got to meet Ramirez and her daughter, which only cemented his decision. On November 11th, Deibert and Ramirez had a successful transplant and soon Ramirez was feeling better than she had in years. And for Deibert, the experience affirmed what he already knew. “You hear the saying ‘it’s more blessed to give than to receive’ and it’s absolute truth,” he says.
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution