USA: A single act of generosity in Cincinnati propelled a young girl’s life into a five-decade saga of survival and gratitude. In September 1975, seven-year-old Bobby Shepherd received a life‑saving kidney transplant after a 16-year-old donor died of respiratory failure. That transplant, carried out on September 17, 1975, made Shepherd one of the longest-surviving kidney recipients from a deceased donor in the nation and has shaped an entire family lineage.
Shepherd now lives in Ohio as a mother of four and grandmother to fourteen grandchildren, ages eighteen down to two, calling her long survival a legacy of the donor’s sacrifice. She publicly honors the anonymous family who chose donation, expressing ongoing gratitude to the surgical teams and care providers who performed the operation and sustained her life through decades of follow-up care.
Her story is presented as a powerful appeal about the persisting national shortage of organs. Roughly 100,000 Americans remain on transplant waiting lists, with about 3,000 in Ohio and 1,000 in Central Ohio alone. Kidneys represent the overwhelming need: nearly 85 percent of patients listed for an organ require a kidney, and about seventeen people nationwide die each day awaiting transplantation.
Shepherd hopes her example will inspire more families to say yes to donation so others can inherit second chances. She frames her long life, children and grandchildren as living evidence of a donated kidney’s impact, and urges communities to register as donors to reduce the daily toll of lives lost while waiting for transplants. She continues to seek connection with the donor’s family and to publicly thank the surgeons and nurses whose skill preserved her life. By sharing her half-century survival and the tangible family that followed, she aims to humanize transplantation statistics and to motivate leaders, systems and individuals to make donor registration an urgent priority.
