Gomez kidney transplant had near-fatal consequences

Pop singer Selena Gomez “could have died” after suffering a complication following her kidney transplant surgery, according to her donor, Grown-ish actress Francia Raisa.

The 25-year-old revealed on Instagram this past September that her best friend had donated a kidney to her and they had undergone the transplant surgery over the summer.

Gomez opened up about her medical emergency on NBC’s Today show in October, and shared that the surgery wasn’t straightforward because one of her arteries flipped.

Raisa has now explained how life-threatening the complication was in a new interview with W magazine.

“A few hours after our surgery, I woke up and had a text from her that said, ‘I’m really scared,’” the 29-year-old said. “My kidney was very active, and when it turned I broke an artery.

“They had to take her into emergency surgery and get a vein from her leg and build a new artery to keep my kidney in place. She could have died.”

Gomez told the Today show that she began hyperventilating and “freaking out” because of the pain she started experiencing after undergoing the transplant.

“It was a six-hour surgery that they had to do on me, and the normal kidney process is actually two hours ... Apparently one of the arteries had flipped. I’m very thankful that there are people who know what to do in that situation,” she said.