'MOST WANTED LIFESAVER'
Donates kidney to cop who busted her
An Alabama woman once on the state’s “Most Wanted” list has given a lifesaving kidney to the cop who threw her in jail.
Jocelynn James, of Russellville, donated the organ to retired officer Terrell Potter, who arrested her twice as she battled an opioid addiction and racked up more than a dozen charges, news station WVTM reported.
“She was constantly being in trouble stealing and doing drugs, those types of things,” Potter told the news outlet, noting that James would “keep falling back in the same pattern and it eventually caught up with her.”
When James had hit rock bottom she had “lost my job, lost my car, lost my license, lost my self-respect. I never lost my kids. I should have.”
“I literally asked God to please take that urge away from me,” she said.
James, who turned her life around and is now clean and sober after serving a sixmonth stay in a halfway house in 2013, said she was scrolling on Facebook in December 2019 when she recognized Potter and saw that he was in need of the transplant.
“The Holy Spirit told me, you’ve got that man’s kidney. I knew right then I had his kidney,” she said.
Potter, who faced an eightyear wait for the procedure, said he was hoping for a miracle.
“I said, ‘Well I just feel like I don’t have to wait that long. I feel like there’s someone out there,’ ” Potter said.
Still, he was stunned when James reached out to offer him her kidney.
“It’s not just a coincidence. It’s just God. There is no other way,” Potter said.
James explained, “In my mind I was just doing what God told me to do, which is to give him my kidney.”
James underwent tests to see if she was a good candidate and received a call from Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville, Tenn., telling her that they “never had a better match for a kidney transplant.”
The pair underwent the procedure at the end of July, and doctors have declared it a success.
“It’s very humbling to have somebody that would give a part of their body to extend your life,” said an emotional Potter, who served on the Phil Campbell, Ala., police force.
Potter, who has two daughters, said he feels like James “is one of my girls.”
“I don’t have a father figure in my life, so I just think it’s pretty awesome,” James said, adding that she “loves” Potter and his wife.
“For God to use me as a vessel to extend Mr. Potter’s life is my greatest accomplishment,” James told WVTM in July. “I should be dead. Instead, God helped me save a life. I am overwhelmed.”
Since getting clean, James established a nonprofit program called The Place of Grace for addicts seeking recovery.
The program is a 9- to 12month live-in program “where women will learn Bible principles and life skills necessary to recover from addiction,” according to its Web site.
“Since August 2013, [James] has helped 508 women seek help with their addiction. She also has a jail ministry at the Franklin County Jail that she has been doing for 5 years,” the Web site says.
James told WVTM, “I’m very thankful to be alive because I should be dead.”