'I couldn't believe it': Police officer donates kidney to complete stranger
Guy Kitchens rolled his wheelchair into the hospital room of a man he’d never met.
Jeff Cooper sat up in bed to greet the stranger who had saved his life.
“Thank you,” Cooper said to Kitchens. “How do you say…”
“You don’t have to say it,” Kitchens replied.
This emotional meeting at Largo Medical Center in Tampa, Florida, took place one day after Kitchens donated his kidney to Cooper. He did it despite having never met Cooper in his life.
“To come forward and save the life of a complete stranger, I’m just so blown away by the whole thing,” Cooper told our sister station WPBF.
The story actually began in August when Kitchens received an email about Cooper. At the time, Cooper had been in renal failure for about a year and needed a kidney to survive.
The email was looking for possible donors.
“I read it. And typically, you just move through,” Kitchens said. “But, for some reason, I don’t know if it was a God thing or what, but, for some reason, I kept going back to it.”
Cooper is a retired deputy from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. The email on his behalf was sent to police agencies around the country. Kitchens saw it because he’s an officer with the Jupiter Police Department.
“To me, a life is a life, right?” Kitchens said. “If it needs saving, that’s what we swore to do, off duty or on duty.”
Kitchens stepped up and soon learned his kidney was a perfect match for Cooper.
“I got a phone call and I’m like, ‘Really?!?’” Cooper said of learning doctors had found him a kidney. “I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it.”
But because of privacy laws, Cooper didn’t know where the kidney was coming from. He didn’t know it was from another police officer nor did he know it was from a complete stranger.
He learned all of that information shortly before Guy Kitchens rolled his wheelchair into his room the day after the transplant surgery.
“To have my life again, there are no words,” Cooper told Kitchens that day.
“That was a good day,” Kitchens said. “I was nervous, but I was more excited. I don’t know. I just felt like I knew him. It’s kind of hard to describe.”
“The gift of life is precious,” Cooper said. “I can’t say enough about Guy.”
Cooper and Kitchens have talked every day since the surgery. They plan to get together as soon as Cooper is healthy enough. They plan to spend their lives as a family.
“I’ve got a little brother now, a whole new family,” Cooper said with a smile. “It’s just fantastic.”
“As I told him, I’ve got an older brother now. So, I told him I expect a really good Christmas gift,” Kitchens said with a laugh.
Cooper would probably agree that he’s earned it. Click for more information on organ donations.
