Wife Donates kidney Voucher Enabling Husband’s Transplant After Prior heart transplant
USA: A Midwest couple’s fight for survival turned into an unusual chain of lifesaving transplantation that bridged a deceased-donor heart and a creative living-donor kidney solution. Ravine Riley, who endured kidney trouble as a teenager and later developed heart failure, received a heart transplant at the Mayo Clinic in 2024. The heart came from a 23-year-old traffic crash victim whose family opted to donate organs locally; the Riley family stayed in contact with the donor’s loved ones afterward.
When Ravine’s kidney function deteriorated again, his wife Shannon stepped forward to be a living donor. Evaluation confirmed the couple shared a blood type but revealed antibody incompatibility that prevented a direct transplant between them. Rather than stop, Shannon donated her kidney in 2025 to another patient in need, participating in a program that created a voucher guaranteeing priority access to a kidney for her husband at a later time.
That voucher pathway allowed Ravine to receive a kidney sourced through the program, completing a sequence of transplants that combined deceased-donor generosity with living-donor creativity. Their case highlights how coordinated transplantation strategies — including living donation, paired exchanges, and voucher systems — can navigate biological barriers and expand options for patients with complex histories of organ failure.
The Rileys say their decisions were driven by mutual care and responsibility to their four children; each has been a caregiver at different stages. Medical teams at Mayo Clinic and the broader transplant community framed the procedures as critical interventions that preserved family continuity and offered additional years of life. The couple emphasize that donation can ripple outward, giving other families a chance at long-term health as it preserved theirs.
Living Donor Guidance: Not applicable — the report recounts a successful living donation and voucher exchange rather than a public request for donors.
Video originally published on 2026-02-13 22:18:14
