Kidney swap’s impact reaches across states, including Oklahoma
Multihospital transplant helps save the lives of 8, including city patient

It started when a 54-year-old man in Virginia decided to donate a kidney after his daughter recovered from brain cancer. Thomas Koontz’s altruistic decision set in motion a kidney swap that helped save the lives of eight people, including one in Oklahoma City.

By the time the 16 surgeries were finished, the people involved had taken part in the largest multihospital, "domino” kidney transplant of its kind.

The Oklahoma City patient recipient and donor declined to speak to the media. Their lives became intertwined with two people they had never met in Baltimore. The local recipient received a kidney from Baltimore; that recipient’s spouse donated one to Robert Imes, 54, of Baltimore.

Imes said he is extremely grateful. He had been on dialysis for three years and had been told he might have to wait for a kidney as long as 14 years. Although he doesn’t know his donor, he has heard the kidney belonged to a 35-year-old man. "I would like to thank them from the bottom of my heart,” Imes said. "For him to do something like this without knowing me, it’s fantastic. Without him, I would still be getting that dreaded dialysis.”

The surgeries were spread over the span of a few weeks for the convenience of the patients and hospital surgical teams. The two Oklahoma patients had surgery June 22. The other surgery dates were June 15, 16 and Monday. The 10 surgeons in charge included two at Integris Baptist Medical Center — Dr. Scott Samara and his son, Dr. Shea Samara; four at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore; two at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis; and two at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

Scott Samara, surgical director for the kidney transplant program at Baptist, said Johns Hopkins has developed a sophisticated computer program to pull together such a swap.

Besides Koontz, the swap involved one woman without a donor and seven additional pairs of people made up of one person who needed a kidney and one willing to donate, but whose blood or tissue type was incompatible.

"It’s miraculous,” said Pamela Paulk, one of the donors and vice president of human resources at Johns Hopkins. "Otherwise people would be sitting there with a willing donor but not being able to get a donor. I think it’s absolutely brilliant.”

Baptist doctors did their first kidney swap in October on a smaller scale. They also participated in a six-way domino kidney transplant surgery with Baltimore and St. Louis on Feb. 14.

"If this model were incorporated not for hundreds but for thousands of people, the ability to increase transplants might be several thousand a year,” Scott Samara said.

The surgical team had to make sure the timing was right as kidneys were flown across the country. By themselves, the transplants were routine.

One big task was coordinating the people involved, blood tests and lab work, which locally fell to Susan Young at Integris. If anyone backed out, the swap would not have been possible.

Potential donors go through a lengthy process before they’re approved, including blood and lab testing, an ultrasound of the kidneys and visits with a donor coordinator, kidney doctor and a living donor advocate, who is someone from outside the department who talks to them about their decision.

After the Integris surgical team submitted the patient’s name and data to Johns Hopkins, it took about a month to hear about a possible match.

Imes expects to go back to work as a painter for Johns Hopkins in the maintenance department in about two months.

"You don’t have to wait and die to help your fellow man,” Imes said.

"And a donation of an organ is one of the things you can do to help someone survive.”

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