Chad Arnold clearly remembers the day he received the call from his older brother, Ryan, telling him they were a perfect match for a liver transplant.
"You feel a lot of things at that point. Relief, gratefulness to God and to Ryan," says Chad, who suffers from an incurable liver disease called primary sclerosing cholangitis.
Chad told his story to Ginger Delgado, a reporter for KDVR in Denver, Colorado.
"After that, you wrestle with a lot of guilt, like I really don't want to bring him through this," Chad added. "But he shut me up pretty fast, and said, 'Well, you would do it for me, wouldn't you?'"
The Arnold family had invited KDVR to be with them the day of the surgery when it took an unexpected and devastating turn. Ryan Arnold, 34, who was completely healthy when he went in to donate 60 percent of his liver to his brother, died four days after the surgery. He is survived by a wife and three young sons.
In a statement, the University of Colorado says, "Despite the risks, Ryan selflessly made the decision to give part of his liver to his brother, Chad. We will learn everything we can from this to keep making the phenomenal gift of transplant safe for donors as well as recipients. We will continue working to improve this vital, life-changing program, which pioneered liver transplants 40 years ago. Ryan's passing will not be in vain."
"This is a story about a man who is deeply convicted by his faith and because of that, what he did for me was just sort of a normal thing that he did for people," Chad, 38, told KDVR after his brother's death. "Ryan is the hero in this."
Advocates for living donors say one should seriously weigh all the risks before deciding to donate a kidney or section of the liver.
Nationally, two out of every 1,000 liver donors die as a result of the surgery , according to OrganDonor.gov, a part of the federal Department of Health and Human Services. From 1996 to 2006, there were 3,016 living liver transplants in the United States.
Between October 1999 and December 2007, 14 people died within a month after donating a kidney, according to a study commissioned by the National Kidney Foundation. During that time, 51,153 people donated a kidney.
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