A Save 1 Person Alert picked up by 1010 Wins in NY, traveled in a blink of an eye from Brooklyn to London to the Holy Land. The miracle created by the media wound up saving the life of this Yemenite girl.
London – We never really know the impact our actions can have on other people. Such was the case when a Save One Person News Alert posted on Vos Iz Neias resulted in a London woman donating a kidney to a ten year old Israeli girl. The story begins this past November when Vos Iz Neias carried a CBS news story about Richard Woontyler, a Brooklyn father of eight who was and still is in desperate need of a kidney transplant. While many who read the story may have been moved to comment or say prayers for Woontyler, Tzivia, a London mother of five decided to give the ultimate gift, by offering to donate her kidney.
Not only was the London woman unable to donate her kidney to Woontyler since United States insurance would not cover the costs of a kidney donation from a British donor,
she was unable to donate a kidney to a specific recipient in England as British law only allows for directed donations between relatives.
A suggestion to donate a kidney in Israel brought about the ultimate match as Tzivia’s kidney was found to be a match for a ten year old Israeli girl. “
The seed of inspiration was sown nine years ago,” said Tzivia in an exclusive interview with VIN News.
“My niece was born with various organ issues and I offered to donate to her. In the end it wasn’t necessary, but over the years I googled to be placed on some sort of kidney donation registry, but there is none in the UK.
In November, VIN ran an article asking people to be tested to donate to a father of eight in the States. I clicked the link and said ‘I’m interested. Test me.’” The transplant, which occurred on March 3rd, was successful with both the donor and recipient are doing well. Tzivia plans to return to London on Wednesday and resume her Passover cleaning. VIN News is grateful for the part it played in this and shares much of the credit with Lauren Finkelstein of Save1Person.org http://save1person.org/ (an organization that highlights one person in the media weekly who needs immediate, emergency, medical help and then asks the respective audiences to save that life) who was responsible for getting CBS News to carry the initial story about Woontyler. “I got in touch with Ben Mevorach, news director at 1010 WINS,” said Finkelstein. “Being that it was close to Chanukah I said to him ‘let’s create a miracle’, in the hopes that WINS would carry Richard’s story. He emailed me back saying ‘Miracle, on the way!’ and he sent a reporter to cover the story of Richard Woontyler.” “In the blink of an eye, the miracle went from Brooklyn, to London to Israel. You just never know what can happen.”
