A Forsyth County firefighter who spent months searching for a kidney donor received the ultimate gift Wednesday when his sister donated her kidney to him during a transplant at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital.
Veteran firefighter Chris Stancel, who was diagnosed with stage 4 kidney disease in May, told FOX 5 he felt no symptoms before the diagnosis. He said doctors caught the problem only because they were monitoring his high blood pressure. “Nope, if it wasn’t for high blood pressure, I would’ve never known. Doctors kept an eye on my levels and that’s how it was found,” he said.
Stancel had been looking everywhere for a donor until a family funeral changed everything. His sister, Katie Kulbok, decided to get tested after hearing calls for volunteers. She soon learned she was a perfect match. “No, I didn’t have be here,” she said, “I’m a people helping people person.”
Their mother, Delorise Stancel, said the siblings acted exactly as they were raised. “They were raised, you take care of your people,” she said. “It was what they were taught to do.”
Dr. Emmanuel Minja, the transplant surgeon at Piedmont Atlanta, said Stancel’s short wait for a living donor is unusual. “Chris has a big blessing to be able to find someone. By far, the majority of kidneys come deceased donors,” he said.
Inside the operating room, FOX 5 cameras captured the moment Kulbok’s kidney was wheeled from one operating suite to the next after a three hour procedure. The family waited anxiously in the lobby, knowing their lives were changing in the middle of the holiday season.
As her son began his new chapter, Delorise Stancel looked at her two children with pride. “He’s, now, carrying a piece of her and their combined together. But they have been all their lives so,” she said.
More than 90,000 people across the United States are currently waiting for a kidney. About 2,800 of them are in Georgia. Nationwide, more than 37 million Americans have chronic kidney disease, and more than 27,000 kidney transplants were performed last year.
