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
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Nov 27, 2015, 7:28 AM
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Updated 3,317 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.
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