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A Lesson in Caring

Science teacher Jane Smith taught her students a lesson in generosity that they surely won't ever forget. This month she gave her left kidney to save a student's life.

"I think any teacher, when a child walks through her door, wants to give that child a better life," says Smith, who teaches at R. Max Abbott Middle School in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

When school began in August, Smith noticed 15-year-old Michael Carter out in the schoolyard wearing his pants really low. She suggested that he hike them up. Michael explained that wearing his pants low was more comfortable because his kidneys hurt.

Michael was born with a disorder that prevented his kidneys from working properly. Last summer he began using a machine several times a week to do the job his kidneys no longer could--filter impurities out of his blood.

Michael told Smith that he needed a kidney transplant but that no one in his family was a suitable donor. (For an organ transplant to work, the tissues of the donor and the recipient must match.)

"I said, ‘I have two. Do you want one?’" Smith remembers. As it turned out, Smith's tissue type matched Michael's. On April 14, surgeons removed her left kidney. In a separate operating room, Michael's doctors replaced his ailing kidney with Smith's healthy one. Both teacher and student are recovering from the operations.

"I feel that everyone has a guardian angel," says Michael's mom Deborah Evans. "Ms. Smith was our guardian angel." Michael was released from the hospital last week, and doctors say he'll be back in school within six months.

Smith should be back in her classroom in a few weeks. She hopes her gift inspires others to donate their organs. "People need to be aware of how they can help," she says.

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