Would you give a kidney to someone you barely knew?

On Dec. 14, 2012, at 7 a.m., John Hembree and David Edwards of McDonough, Ga., joined a “live tweet.” It was the state’s first to cover a robotic nephrectomy and living donor kidney transplantation at Piedmont Atlanta Hospital. Minute-by-minute updates, photos and videos of the two men’s surgeries were shared with the public via five of Piedmont Healthcare’s social media outlets: Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

Would you donate a kidney to someone you have only met once? Prior to this summer, John Hembree had never asked himself that question. He recalls following the story of a fellow church member who donated a kidney to another member years earlier. “I was quite awed by that,” he recalls. Then, this past July, an NPR story about living kidney donation caught Hembree’s attention. Tucking it away, he didn’t mention the story to anyone for several days. After it began weighing more heavily on his mind, he brought up the idea to his wife. Hembree would soon learn that someone in his community needed his help.

Savannah, Hembree’s 22-year-old daughter, served as a church camp counselor. When she returned from camp, she told her parents about a woman she had become close with, Pam Edwards. Edwards told Savannah that her husband, David, had recently been placed on a kidney transplant waiting list. When Savannah told her parents, “My wife and I both looked at Savannah, and she thought she’d done something wrong,” Hembree says. “That’s when my wife said, ‘Your dad has been considering giving a kidney away, and he just didn’t know to whom.’” That was just the sign he needed to move forward with the process.

“To me, it was a confirmation of what I’d been considering – that it was actually the direction I should be going,” Hembree says. “The fun part really began when we anonymously began to be evaluated without the Edwards family knowing who it was.” Only three people knew Hembree was being tested as a possible match for Edwards. “Through the whole process, we had intentionally kept the Edwards family, as well as our immediate family, in the dark,” he says. “The Edwards family knew someone was being evaluated, they just didn’t know who. In fact, they even asked Savannah if she knew who it was. She said she had no idea.”

Although he wasn't related to the recipient, Hembree wasn't surprised he was a match—he felt it was meant to be. He and his family discussed how they were going to tell the Edwards family the news. At Savannah’s suggestion, Hembree decided to write a “handwritten, old-fashioned letter” signed by the family. He concluded the note with, “I have a 53-year-old kidney. Would you like to have it?” Click here to find the story of the recipient, David Edwards. To learn more about living kidney donation, visit the Piedmont Transplant Institute.

Need to make an appointment with a Piedmont physician? Save time, book online.