Donor at 22 I'D DO IT AGAIN!

Giving a stranger another shot at life is just one of this inspiring young woman’s kind acts

- Fleur Guthrie

Dreaming of donating an organ isn’t top of most teenagers’ minds. But at 16, Leah Stewart wrote a bucket list that included donating a kidney. Six years later, she ticked it offthe list.

When her sister mentioned high-school friend Denny Chetty had end-stage renal failure and needed a kidney transplant, Leah didn’t hesitate to go through the testing process to see if she’d be a match.

“In the end, Denny and I weren’t a match,” tells Leah. “But we were asked if we wanted to join the kidney exchange programme, which meant my kidney went to a stranger in Wellington and an anonymous donor gave Denny one.

“Denny is doing amazingly well now and it’s really humbling to have been part of her journey.”

While Leah was making the life-altering decision to donate a kidney, she was given lots of information about the operation.