Woman gets 2nd chance with kidney from Nevada

Thursday, Feb. 20, 2003 | 11 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

A kidney from a man who died in Southern Nevada made it through this week's East Coast snowstorm to save the life of a Hartford, Conn., woman, officials said.

It was the second kidney sent east for Sandra Membrino, a 48-year-old grandmother. The first kidney wound up stuck on a plane grounded in Detroit by the blizzard.

As Hartford Hospital officials scrambled in vain Monday to find an airport clear of snow in New England, it became obvious the barreling storm would keep Membrino from receiving the organ stuck in Michigan. A kidney must be transplanted within 72 hours after it is removed from a donor.

Membrino, who has end-stage renal disease, was sent home to Southington and was put back on the donor list. Her last wait was more than two years.

But Tuesday, while in a drive-through line for her morning coffee, her cell phone rang. There was another kidney that matched her body's needs.

The kidney came from someone in Southern Nevada, the Nevada Donor Newtwork said today. Federal regulations prohibit the agency from releasing the name of the donor or the hospital from which the kidney came.

"It's really wonderful to learn that one of the kidneys from here was a perfect match because that is so extremely rare and that it helped save someone," Ken Richardson, director of the Nevada Donor Network, said. About 65 kidneys are harvested in Southern Nevada each year, he said.

Like the first kidney, the kidney from Southern Nevada was a six-point perfect match, which occurs in only 5 percent of the 12,000 kidneys harvested annually, experts said.

"This does not happen," said Cathy Ouellette of LifeChoice Donor Services. "For one person to get a perfect match is rare. For one person to get a perfect match twice, it's extremely rare. It never happens."

The first kidney had come from Arizona and was rerouted to California after it couldn't be delivered to Membrino. The second was coming from Nevada. Both were from healthy young men in their 20s, officials said.

Membrino spent 12 hours waiting at the hospital for the second kidney. It was supposed to arrive at 4:30 p.m., then at 6:15 p.m.

"I was geared up for a letdown," she said.

But the four-hour surgery got under way at 9 p.m. and went perfectly.

From her hospital bed Wednesday, Membrino said she could already feel her circulation improving. Her hands, which after 16 years of kidney problems had become red, were returning to their normal color.

Sun reporter

Ed Koch contributed to this story.