Mum's Facebook kidney plea prompts 'mind-blowing' gift from total stranger

A woman who shared a desperate plea for a kidney on Facebook has undergone a lifesaving transplant after a stranger offered to be her donor.

Karen Davey, 41, had exhausted every avenue before turning to social media, where she said she did not "want to leave her family without a mother".

Gary Summerfield saw the mum-of-four's post and, after learning he was a match, donated one of his kidneys via an operation in July.

"I thought this lady needs one of my kidneys more than I need two of them," said Gary.

Karen's family said they would never be able to repay Gary for his generosity, adding that it had given her "another chance to be a mum".

The average wait for a deceased donor kidney transplant in the UK is two to three years, according to NHS Blood and Transplant, but if you have a living donor it can be about three to six months.

This was Karen's second lifesaving transplant. She underwent a heart transplant 10 years ago, after having a heart attack aged 31 while watching her son play football.

A transplant increases the risk of infection because of the medication patients need to take following the procedure, and complications led to Karen developing kidney failure.

"I knew the tablets I was taking following the heart transplant would damage the kidneys so they try and keep the dose as low as possible, but we always knew when I had the heart transplant that I would probably need a kidney transplant at some point, and that is hard to deal with mentally."

Karen, from Brynna, Rhondda Cynon Taf, was in stage three kidney failure when she discovered her friends and family were not matches and decided to put a plea on Facebook.

She explained in her post that she has a relatively rare blood type and described the kidney failure as putting her life on hold.

Karen's eldest is now 22, and she is also grandmother to a one-year-old.

"The kids were 10 years younger when I had the heart transplant, and they've been through a lot since then and the kidney was just the next hurdle," she added.

Gary, a security guard from Tredegar, Blaenau Gwent, stumbled upon Karen's post by chance and felt he had to help.