Kentucky woman donates kidney to stranger, falls in love

When Ashley McIntyre offered to donate her kidney to a stranger, she had no idea she’d end up spending the rest of her life with him.

But on Christmas, less than a year after the 26-year-old Kentucky woman donated her kidney to a 25-year-old dialysis patient named Danny Robinson, she agreed to marry him.

"I never in a million years imagined this would happen. … It was a whirlwind," a teary-eyed McIntyre told the Courier-Journal. “It’s crazy how it all worked. It was all planned out by God.”

McIntyre first learned of Robinson through her mom, who heard Robinson’s mother talk about his need for a kidney on a radio program last January.

Diagnosed with IgA nephropathy at the age of 16, Robinson was on dialysis three days a week, four hours a day, waiting for a transplant. None of him family members were a match, leaving him on the transplant waiting list for almost two years.

McIntyre was moved by his stories and wanted to help. She emailed the radio show producers and got in touch with the University of Kentucky transplant program. With every screening and test, McIntyre proved to be a good match.

Transplant coordinator Todd Maynard said their kidneys were “a match but not a perfect match…A perfect match is very rare, 1 out of 100,000.”

Despite initial concerns that meeting before the transplant might be unwise — McIntyre worried that she’d disappoint Robinson and his family if the transplant failed — their families met about a month before the scheduled surgery. McIntyre and Robinson immediately hit it off.

"As soon as we started talking, it was like our families had known each other forever," McIntyre told ABC News.

“She was so scared that she was going to let us down. All I wanted to do was hug her. She was our angel,” Danny’s mom told KTLA.

In the days leading up to the transplant, McIntyre and Robinson talked on the phone and texted. They met up a few times at fundraisers held by their friends.

On April 17, they arrived at the hospital for the procedure.

The transplant was a successful one. Robinson told the Courier-Journal that he has 10 times the energy he had before the transplant.

On Memorial Day, Robinson and McIntyre started dating.

"As soon as we started dating — not long after that — was when we realized, this was it," McIntyre told ABC News.

On Christmas Day, Robinson proposed.

They are expecting a daughter in June.

"I feel great, better than I’ve ever felt," Robinson said of life after the transplant. “I have more of a life.”

Robinson’s new kidney is expected to last for 25 or 30 years.

“I will be doing whatever I can to help him get a new one,” McIntyre said of her fiancé’s likely need for another transplant in three decades. “I wish I had 50 kidneys to give him.”

McIntyre hopes their story inspires others to consider becoming organ donors.

"I know being a living organ donor is not possible for a lot of people," McIntyre told the Courier-Journal. “But it’s something to just think about. And even if it’s not an option, people can put on their license that they will donate” after death. “It’s just kind of a human thing, something (to) do for another person that could change their life.”