Stranger from Facebook gives a kidney to save another's life

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ktla.com

Stranger from Facebook gives a kidney to save another's life

Transplant goes well, organ reported healthy and working

Marni Hughes

Q13 FOX News reporter

8:18 PM PST, December 30, 2011

SEATTLE

Facebook connects millions of people every day. But for one local man, the social website saved his life.

And he has a total stranger to thank.

At her hospital bed at the University of Washington Medical Center, Allie Carr, 26, is recovering from surgery.  “I feel pretty good considering I just had a vital organ taken out of me," she joked.

Carr donated her kidney to a man she met just five months ago on Facebook.

The man’s name was Dan Garrett – and the page read simply, “My husband needs a new kidney.”

“We'd gone through several people in the family, so we'd run out of that, and it was the next thing I could think to do," said Megin Garrett, Dan’s wife. The couple live in Yelm, as does Carr.

"I saw it (the post), I knew it was something i had to do," Carr said. "That was Thursday and by Friday I was getting tested."

Carr and Dan Garrett were a match.

And last Wednesday, Carr gave the Garretts one of her kidneys.

Dan Garrett is doing well, and the kidney is healthy and working.

"She's (Carr’s) really amazing, to go to a stranger to give someone a piece of yourself literally and she's given me and Dan a chance to have a normal life, a honeymoon, having children," Megin Garrett said.

Carr was modest about providing a life-saving gift.

"I wanted to do something meaningful, and if I could give this to them, then I think that everyone should consider it."


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