Blizzard Causes Florida Kidney Patient to Miss Out on "Perfect Match"

Beyond the havoc that the Blizzard of 2003 created in the northeastern United States, it also resulted in a Florida woman missing out on the transplant of a kidney that was a "perfect match."

The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) allocation system requires that cadaver kidneys be sent anywhere in the country if the computer finds a recipient who is the optimum six antigen match.

As the weekend blizzard was gaining strength, the UNOS computer determined that a kidney from a donor who had died in the Philadelphia area was a "perfect match" for a woman waiting in Tampa, FL.

For 10 hours, the Gift of Life Donor Program tried to arrange to fly the organ to Tampa, but all flights to Florida from Philadelphia and Newark were cancelled because of the mounting snow.

With the time that the kidney would remain viable for transplant dwindling, the organ procurement organization searched the waiting list of 2,600 kidney patients in the Philadelphia area for the person with the longest waiting time and compatible tissue and blood types.

At that point, Debbie Williams, a 38-year-old mother of three, got the call. All she had to do, she was told, was get to Hahnemann University Hospital.

With snow a foot deep on her street, taxi companies told her they couldn't make it -- so she walked three blocks to the trolley.

"I had to step really high. The snow was up to my knees," Williams said following her transplant. She said she hoped to take a taxi for the trip home.

Other Sources: Washington Post