Stranger offers to donate kidney over Facebook

Two men who were perfect strangers not too long ago celebrated Thanksgiving together this year as one prepares to make a lifesaving kidney donation to the other. Mark Brunie, of Floral Park, says he

News 12 Staff

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Nov 27, 2015, 7:28 AM

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Updated 3,164 days ago

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Two men who were perfect strangers not too long ago celebrated Thanksgiving together this year as one prepares to make a lifesaving kidney donation to the other.

Mark Brunie, of Floral Park, says he was on a kidney transplant list at North Shore-LIJ since 2013.

Three days a week, he had to spend five hours hooked up to a kidney dialysis machine.

Doctors say that once a patient's kidneys fail, they have about five years to find a donor. But New York's overcrowded wait lists sometimes take as long as seven years.

Brunie turned to the Internet in search of help.

That's when Jimmy Maloy, a complete stranger, learned of Brunie's plight. Maloy says he felt a higher calling and contacted Brunie.

Doctors then discovered that they were a perfect match for the procedure.

The families of both men are sharing Thanksgiving together -- the start of what they say will become a lifetime of friendship.

"To think that he has a new beginning because of a perfect stranger after seeing something on Facebook is a gift," says Brunie's wife Catherine.

The two will undergo kidney transplant surgery on Dec. 14.