When a guy was experiencing a heart attack almost seven years ago, Kristi Hadfield was the paramedic who saved his life. She recently donated a kidney to his daughter, saving both of their lives.
“I’m eternally grateful,” said 42-year-old Molly Jones of Pennsboro, West Virginia. It is comparable to having a guardian angel.
Now a days, the two women text and converse frequently. Hadfield declares, “We are connected forever.”
Jones concurs, saying “She’s family, she’s real family.”
In August 2016, retired police officer John Cunningham, now 72, stopped at a neighboring EMS facility on his way to work at a neighborhood pub because he wasn’t feeling well.
Hadfield recalls taking his temperature and having an EKG performed. When he replied that he had no prior history of heart issues, she said, “You do now.”
According to the EKG, “it appeared that he was actively experiencing a heart attack.”
He experienced a cardiac attack while being transported in an ambulance to a hospital 30 minutes away, and Hadfield, who is now 56, gave chest compressions until they arrived. The good news is that they “were able to get him back,” she claims.
She sent him a friend request on Facebook one day because Hadfield regularly follows up with his patients. She received a message from his daughter right away.
Jones explains, “I had been trying to find the individual who saved my dad. “I needed to know why my father was still alive. I had to know who had rescued him.
It ended up being a life-saving link for her as well, thanks to that buddy request.
Jones, whose mother and grandmother both had autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, was advised by her doctor to find a living donor as her health worsened.
On July 7, 2022, she posted on Facebook that she was officially on the kidney transplant list and requested if anyone would consider donating, despite the fact that she found it difficult to ask for assistance.
Hadfield sent her a message right away saying, “I have your kidney.”
“Listen kid, I saved your dad, I’m going to save you, too,” she stated to me. Jones recalls what Hadfield told her. I don’t know how she just knew, but she never faltered and she never hesitated. She silenced me completely. I clearly recall crying while sitting there.
Why not give her the spare I have since I have one? Says Hadfield.
As Hadfield went through the demanding screening and testing procedures, the two women spoke every day.
“She contacted me every single day to see how I was doing. I can still hear her telling me, “Don’t give up on me,” over and over again. Do not give up on me. Don’t give up,’” Jones recalls hearing. “Having her simply support me in that way meant so much.”
And the transplant was eventually performed on December 27.
The transplant’s surgeon, Dr. Amit Tevar, Director of Kidney and Pancreas Transplantation at UPMC, calls it “one of the more wonderful displays of human kindness” he has ever witnessed. And it was just wonderful to see folks taking initiative to assist others.
Better still? Very good, the transplant went.
Jones claims, “My kidney started working right away.”
The two women have a lifelong friendship and have made it their goal to “really educate people about the importance of organ donation,” according to Jones.
“There are 104,000 people on the transplant list and 84 percent of them are waiting for a kidney – 13 people are going to die every day waiting for a kidney, and it’s because they don’t have a Kristi like I did,” she claims.
Their transplant surgeon continues, “When someone is a donor, they truly are saving the life of the recipient,” and urges anyone interested in becoming a donor to get in touch with him.
They want to inspire others to donate their bodies through live donors by telling their tale.
Reach out if you’re considering it, advises Hadfield. “The only thing I regret is not acting sooner,”
