Sheriff deputy’s altruistic kidney donation helps many

An act of selflessness by a local Riverside County Sheriff’s deputy is making a huge difference in the lives of a few kidney transplant recipients and their families at Loma Linda University Medical Center.

A warm embrace is bringing applause at the medical center as a kidney transplant recipient was meeting her organ donor for the first time.

“It’s hard to believe how much one little organ can change someone’s life,” Tracey Newton, a kidney donor. “I’m always like after I donate like what kind of philosophical thing can I think of.”

For her, it’s being an “altruistic donor”. That means she is is donating her healthy kidney without even knowing beforehand who’s receiving it.

“I started looking up altruistic and found out that people can donate anonymously, or not anonymously cause I did want to know who I was donating to,” Newton said.

Her donation wound up helping more than one person, causing a chain reaction where living donors unable to give their kidney to a family member, instead gave it to another recipient that matched. Newton’s donation was the key in helping get four people new kidneys, with some waiting years to get one.

It was the largest chain transplant conducted by the hospital. For Asia Khem, the direct recipient of Newton’s kidney, it’s bringing her a more mobile future after recovery.

“I actually just waiting for the doctors to tell me like you can go and like exercise and be more active, and that’s what I’m waiting for,” she said.

“Once you donate, you’re kind of like, you heart like the Grinch kind of expands a little more because you donate and you’re like wow, what more can I do?” Newton said.

For these recipients and their family members, she has already done more than they could ever imagine.

Staff at Loma Linda University Medical Center said it’s encouraging anyone in good health to consider being an “altruistic donor”. They said over 100,000 people are currently on a wait list for a new kidney across the country.