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 The first donor and recipient went into surgery at California
Pacific Medical Center at 7:30 a.m., with two more donor-recipient
pairs on the schedule for Thursday, then the remaining three pairs
on Friday, hospital spokesman Dean Fryer said.
The chain of donations began when Zully Broussard, 55, of
Sacramento, whose son and husband both died of cancer, offered to
donate a kidney to a friend, but the friend ultimately had to use
another donor, according to hospital officials.
Still willing to donate, even to a stranger, Broussard was matched
with a man from Benicia, California, triggering a domino effect.
That man’s sister-in-law, who was not a match for him, agreed to
donate her kidney to a Fresno woman, while her son, in turn, would
be a donor for another woman, and on it went.
"I'm excited, not nervous," Broussard told San Francisco’s KNTV news
on the eve of surgery. "I know there's going to be a life out there
that's extended. I feel like there is a higher power behind all
this, making it happen. I didn't realize it was so huge. I'm just a
small part of the chain."
The six-way transplant involving a dozen people is the largest
kidney swap in the 44-year history of California Pacific's
transplant center. In 2011, the hospital became the state's first to
do a five-way swap, Fryer said.
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"It is just amazing that we're able to create this large of a chain
within a single hospital," Fryer said. "You've got six people who
now have a second chance at life."
(Editing by Cynthia Johnston; Editing by Will Dunham)
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