First successful kidney transplant donor has passed away

[fuzzypickles]

From Yahoo News:

AUGUSTA, Maine – A man who donated a kidney to his dying twin brother 56 years ago in what’s recognized as the world’s first successful organ transplant has died.

Ronald Lee Herrick died Monday at the Augusta Rehabilitation Center in Maine. He was 79. His wife, Cynthia, said his health deteriorated after undergoing heart surgery in October.

Herrick donated a kidney to his twin brother, Richard, at what is now Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. Because they were identical twins, there was no problem with rejection. The United Network for Organ Sharing says it was the first successful organ transplant.

The operation on Dec. 23, 1954, kept Herrick’s brother alive for eight years. Lead surgeon Dr. Joseph Murray went on to win a Nobel Prize.

[Enderw24]

So the operation was a success but…

[PunditLisa]

I don’t see anything in the article that would lead me to see a connection between his kidney donation and his death.

[fuzzypickles]

@PunditLisa

I don’t see anything in the article that would lead me to see a connection between his kidney donation and his death.

There isn’t any connection, it’s just an obit about a man who gave his twin brother a few extra years of life, via a surgical operation which, at the time, was extremely risky and experimental. I just thought it was a cool little story, that’s all.

[Drain_Bead]

So much whooshing in such a small space. I think my ears just popped.

[UltraVires]

So, the moral of the story is to never, ever donate a kidney?

*ducks