Good deed doesn't go unnoticed

Thursday, June 21, 2007

By Marcie Young
Charlotte Observer Staff Writer

When Chris Jernigan decided to donate one of his kidneys to a colleague, he figured it would be a quiet surgery that would only be shared with their families, close friends and other co-workers.

"It was never intended to be like this," Jernigan said Wednesday, hours after an interview with the ABC morning show, "Good Morning America."
"The national media attention has really been a shock."

For seven years, Lisa White, one of Jernigan's employees at a Morganton foster care agency, has battled polycystic kidney disease, a potentially deadly and genetic condition that left cysts scattered along her kidneys.

But last month, after years of watching White suffer from severe infections and daily, constant pain, Jernigan gave his employee of more than 11 years what she needed most -- a transplant.

As Jernigan and White began going through the transplant process, they learned more about organ donors and the long list of people waiting for kidneys. The wait, she recalls doctors saying, can sometimes take five years.

Many of White's family have suffered from the disease, she said. Her mother died three months after receiving a kidney transplant, and an aunt and uncle died from complications of the disease.

Another aunt is doing well after her transplant, White said, but her older brother has been waiting for a donor for more than a year.

They never intended to make national headlines, but news of a boss donating a kidney to an employee has spread from CNN to The Associated Press and smaller television stations and newspapers across the country.

"It just mushroomed into this big thing," White said. " I'm not the only one who has had this done. There's so many people who have had transplants ... and need transplants."

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