Kidney Transplant Turns Acquaintances Into Brothers
A UPS driver donated his organ to a man he saw on his route.
— -- In September, Jason Henley, a UPS driver, made a life-saving delivery to Greg Hall, a man he barely knew.
Hall, 31, had often signed for deliveries at a UPS store on Henley's route in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In 2014, when Henley noticed Hall's absence at the store, he asked about it. He eventually learned that Hall, a father and husband, had been diagnosed with kidney failure, was on dialysis and needed a transplant.
"Being a UPS driver gives me the opportunity to come into contact with a lot of people," Henley, 35, said. "I got to know [Greg] as an acquaintance over a month or so period. ... so when I got to know Greg and immediately heard that he was sick. ... [I thought,] 'How can I help him in that?' ... The only thing I knew was his last name and where he worked."
Henley, also a husband and father, said he got tested, found out that he was a match and decided that he was going to donate his kidney to Hall.
"I blew him off at first, thinking why would you want to give me a kidney," Hall said.
Ten weeks after surgery, both men said that they were thankful and that during the process, they'd also become pretty good friends. In fact, Hall and Henley also learned that they shared the same birthday.
"I don't know how many times I've told him, 'Thank you,'" Hall said today. "It's a whole new life. ... Life is great."
Hall said, he'd recently gotten the doctor's OK to return to work and Henley said that he planned to go back to work after Christmas.
"If I was able to do this all over again, I would," Henley said. "I have been more blessed during this entire process, more than I could have imagined."
"That's my brother right here," Hall said.