Jamaican teen receives remote kidney transplant in US hospital first

Jamaican teen receives remote kidney transplant in US hospital first A Jamaican teenager facing Stage 5 kidney failure has successfully received a living donor transplant in a historic procedure at the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital in Florida, United States. Arianna Crockett, an 18-year-old who was born in the United States but raised in Jamaica, received her new kidney Wednesday night, after the organ had been removed from a living donor across the United States earlier that day and flown to South Florida where the teen currently resides.

In the process, she became the first patient ever at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital to receive a kidney from a remotely located living donor. The donor was Sara Goodall, the 40-year-old wife of Crockett’s cousin, according to an article by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Crockett said she was both nervous and excited during her final dialysis session a few hours before her transplant, the article stated.

“It’s very surreal, and nerve-wracking. So I’m nervous-cited, nervous and excited,” Crockett, who reportedly had been receiving dialysis three times a week after going into renal failure in January, told the news service. Goodall, too, described herself as “nervous-cited” ahead of the procedure, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported, noting that the mother said she wished to give “Ari” the opportunity and that she admires the teen’s positive outlook on life.

The Jamaica Observer reported last year on Crockett’s desperate need for a kidney transplant and her mother, Tracy Evans’ plea for a living donor to save her daughter’s life. READ: Arianna needs a living kidney donor “We remain strong and trust God that there is a kidney for her,” the mother said at the time. Crockett was diagnosed with kidney disease at age six.

She attended Victory Academy in Jamaica up to the ninth grade and about three years ago migrated to South Florida where she finished high school.