Guelph woman successfully donates kidney to help stranger on social media

A Guelph woman has now selflessly and successfully donated her kidney to a woman from Stouffville after connecting through social media.

For three years, Lucy Latino and her family have been trying to find a new kidney until Claire Yuricek came along to change her life.

Yuricek said, being a living donor was never a question once she knew that she was a match with Latino.

Yuricek had her surgery on Friday and is now recovering in a hospital in Toronto.

“They said I have an exceptional kidney and it's actually started producing urine right away, so that is really, really amazing,” said Yuricek, hours after the surgery.

Latino’s daughter Daniellle gave CTV News an update and said Latino’s surgery also went well and she’s also in recovery.

“When you’re really sick, you almost don’t see the light,” said Latino in an interview earlier this week. “But my donor Claire has given us so much hope.”

Latino already has plans post-surgery and said she wants to spend more time with her loved ones and get to do the things she’s missed.

According to Ontario Health, 35 per cent of Ontarians are registered donors but they also said that someone dies every three days because the organ they needed wasn’t available.

Anyone over the age of 16 with a valid Ontario health card can register their consent for organ and tissue donation. One donor can also save up to eight lives through organ donation and enhance up to 75 lives through tissue donation.