Nick Kohler, Altruistic Kidney Donor, Gives Kidney To 9-Year-Old After 3-Year Wait

Young Florida Diver Donates kidney to Stranger, Launches Campaign to Inspire More Altruistic Gifts

USA: At 25, Nick Kohler — a Florida Keys instructor who teaches people to breathe underwater — chose to donate one of his kidneys to an unknown recipient, stepping into the spotlight as an altruistic living donor. The kidney was placed in nine-year-old Aaron, a child who had been waiting for three years for a life-saving organ. The operation took place under the care of the transplant team at Memorial Regional.

Kohler said he decided he could not justify keeping a spare kidney when someone else needed it more, and he deliberately offered the organ to any compatible recipient rather than to a family member. That non-directed gift framed the act as a deliberate, selfless choice rather than a directed family donation, and it has become the central motivation for his public outreach.

Within hours of the procedure Kohler reported no major complaints, and the two recipients met briefly after surgery with a thumbs-up exchange that marked the first public interaction between donor and child. Aaron is reported to be recovering well, and the pair plan a more formal reunion in the coming weeks as recovery continues. The surgical team, led in part by Dr. Linda Chen of Memorial Regional, described true altruistic donors as deeply selfless and moving examples for clinicians and patients alike.

Kohler has launched the Spare Parts Project to encourage others to consider living donation and to normalize giving outside traditional circles. His campaign urges people to think of donation as a concrete way to save a life and to share bodily gifts when medically appropriate. The story frames the transplant as both a surgical success and the start of an advocacy effort aimed at expanding the ranks of voluntary, life-saving donors.