ATLANTA -- Two friends who met at church are recovering Friday after one gave her kidney to the other.
And 11Alive had a chance to show you their surgeries live on our Facebook page. We even watched as one of the surgeons carried the healthy kidney from the donor in one room to the recipient next door.
Piedmont Atlanta Hospital invited 11Alive in to help raise awareness of the importance of organ donation. The donor’s name is Rebekah. She’s only 25 and she stepped up when she learned that Freddy, who’s 46, needed a transplant.
She told us she prayed about it, got tested and was thrilled when she learned she was a match. We’re told both the donor and recipient are doing well tonight. This was her first-ever surgery.
"From the very beginning, I felt like it was the Lord asking me if I was willing to do this – help Freddy have a long, healthy life," she said. "This whole thing has been incredibly humbling. It is a part of my purpose, my destiny."
11Alive was live in the donor's room first - then the recipient's room. At about the 54-minute mark you can see the surgeon walk from one room to the other with the kidney.
Currently, there are nearly 5,000 people in Georgia still waiting for a kidney transplant. Yet, the number of transplants performed remains constrained by the limited number of people willing to donate.
For more information, visit Piedmont.org's Living Donor page.
