Facebook Helps Save Man's Life, Finds Miracle Donor
David Ensley and his family are thanking a kidney donor for saving his life, but the South Carolina donor says all credit must go to God for allowing a Facebook page to bring them together.
Ensley was originally diagnosed with polycystic kidney disease in 2001. Doctors informed him in 2009, when his kidney failed, that he could die if something wasn't done. Polycystic kidney disease is a condition in which cysts form on the kidneys, causing them to become enlarged.
Ensley was placed on a donor's list, but doctors couldn't find a match for years, saying there was a 20 million-to-one chance of finding a perfect match.
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That's when one of Ensley's sisters, Jennifer Scoggins was inspired to launch a Facebook page to help find a kidney donor.
“A girlfriend of mine called and said she had a co-worker that had actually found her match on Facebook," Scoggins told WBTV. She figured they didn't have much to lose.
Chuck Cunningham, an old friend of Ensley and his sister, happened to come across the Facebook page and mentioned it to his wife, Amy. Cunningham said she was moved by the sad situation, but never imagined that she would be a match. She eventually decided to get tested, and to Ensley's delight and her surprise, she was the perfect match he had been looking for.
The pair entered the hospital on July 6 for the successful operation and both are now recovering at home.
Ensley says he considers Cunningham his sister, telling the Carolina Gateway, “I couldn’t believe she did it, most people wouldn’t do anything like this. But she did. It’s her faith, and her spirituality, her character and I can’t thank her enough.”
Cunningham insists that the miracle match had nothing to do with her. That it was God at work the whole time.
“There wasn’t any decision to be made,” Cunningham told the Carolina Gateway. “God has everything happen for a reason. His finger has been in this the whole time. And he works through Facebook. Who’d have thought that?”
Cunningham says she hopes their story will inspire others to become living kidney donors.
