Gift of kidney sparks a trend
‘Domino effect’ helps 28 patients
Shelby County Commissioner Steve Mulroy said Thursday that he thought he might help a halfdozen people by donating a kidney to any stranger who could use it on April 30.
But the chain of kidney recipients that Mulroy’s donation in Memphis triggered stretched much farther and much faster than anyone could have hoped.
The chain reaction ended on Wednesday with 28 people across the country receiving kidneys from 28 donors in the five weeks since Mulroy volunteered his kidney at the Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute in Memphis, operated in partnership with the University
of Tennessee.
Known as “Chain 221” at the New York-based National Kidney Registry, Mulroy’s was the secondlargest chain, only shorter than a 30-recipient string made between August and December 2011, according to the national registry.
“I’m just so gratified that I’ve been able to help so many people in such a dramatic way,” said Mulroy, 49, a University of Memphis law professor. “I had originally hoped that I might help a half of a dozen people, but to know that the chain has grown to 28 — 10 of whom were chronic, desperate people who would not otherwise have received kidneys, I’m just overjoyed.”
Mulroy stepped forward when numerous people needed kidneys. The registry maintains a pool of willing donors. But their kidneys don’t match or can’t always be transplanted.
Mulroy did not designate anyone to receive his kidney. That set off the chain reaction. His kidney was matched with someone on the registry who needed one. Their willing donor then was matched with another person on the registry who needed a kidney and also had a willing donor, continuing the chain.
“It’s a domino effect waiting for the first domino to fall,” said Dr. James Eason, program director of the Methodist transplant institute and the surgeon who removed Mulroy’s kidney.
Eason said he recalled only one altruistic donor besides Mulroy at Methodist University.
Nineteen transplant centers, ranging from the Cleveland Clinic to Emory, UCLA and Massachusetts General hospitals, were involved in the Mulroy chain.
“I think the public needs to learn that it can be done more often and our priority is to make sure we don’t do harm to a healthy person,” Eason said. “An otherwise healthy person can donate a kidney without any longterm harm.”
Mulroy said he never missed a county commission or a law school class, has started to jog again and has only tiny scars.
“Literally, it’s as though it never happened,” he said.
An episode of “The Simpsons” television show in which Homer’s neighbor, Ned Flanders, donates a kidney on a “first come, first served” basis, a billboard that reinforced the idea years later and a November 2011 story in The Commercial Appeal about a then 63-year-old Catholic priest who donated a kidney to a 63-year-old church member helped him make his decision, Mulroy said. He made up his mind over lunch with the priest, Rev. Valentine “Father Val” Handwerker.
“I’ll do anything to kind of spread the word, because it is such a simple thing to do and it can save so many lives,” Mulroy said.