Young Miami Diver Donates kidney To Stranger child, Launches “Spare Parts” Campaign
November 11, 2025 — by Transplant News
USA: A 25-year-old scuba diver from the Miami Keys, Nick Kohler, donated one of his kidneys to a complete stranger at Memorial Regional Hospital, initiating a ripple of relief for a child and a renewed mission to recruit other young donors. Kohler, who goes by the nickname Cuda, chose altruistic donation after screening cleared him for surgery and he entered the operating room determined to give without expectation of reciprocity.
Following the procedure and an 11-hour span that included recovery, Kohler learned that his transplanted kidney had been matched to a nine-year-old boy who had been waiting on the transplant list for three years. Hospital surgeons facilitated a brief, in-person meeting between donor and recipient, marked by a simple thumbs-up exchange that underscored the human connection at the center of the operation. Transplant surgeon Dr. Linda Chen described altruistic donors as profoundly impactful to clinical teams and to the patients who benefit.
The story also highlights another recent recipient, identified as Leeson, who received a living-donor kidney about a year earlier and described a dramatic improvement in daily life following transplantation. Their experience underscores the tangible outcomes that living donation can produce for people living with end-stage kidney disease, shortening wait times and restoring opportunities that dialysis restricts.
Kohler has turned his personal decision into an advocacy effort by founding the Spare Parts Project, focused on persuading people in their twenties to consider living kidney donation. He frames the choice as accessible and life-changing, urging healthy young adults to think of a spare kidney as a gift that can transform another person’s future. The account centers on the medical, personal and community dimensions of living kidney transplantation in the Miami area.
