Man's Kidney Donation Is 'Missing Link' for Three Transplants

Yahoo News | Sarah B Weir
Photo: Beckham Fershtut, one of the three kidney recipients

When Ted Bartling, a rocket scientist from Utah, decided to donate a kidney to a stranger, he knew he'd potentially be saving one person's life. What he didn't know was that he'd be saving three people's lives.

Bartling's incredible sacrifice, or "gift as he calls it, set in motion a chain of events at Salt Lake City's University Hospital and Primary Children's Medical Center that forever linked six people and allowed three, including a 2-year-old boy, to receive successful kidney transplants late last week. 

On Thursday, Dr. Jeffrey Campsen, who performed surgery on the donors, told Yahoo Shine that all three recipients and their donors are thriving and have headed home or will be discharged within the next couple of days."For at least 15 years, donating a kidney had been on my mind as something I could do to help somebody live a normal life like mine," Bartling, 51, told Yahoo Shine. "They'll only take a kidney up until you're about 60. I can do small things for people, but sometimes we have to do the bigger things if we are capable."
______________________________________________________ 
"You have the power to SAVE lives." 
To register as a donor TODAY
In California: 
www.donateLIFEcalifornia.org | www.doneVIDAcalifornia.org 
Outside California: 
www.organdonor.gov | www.donatelife.net

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