Brenda Jones, a 69-year-old grandmother from Dallas, Texas, had been on the liver transplant list for the past seven months. She had suffered from liver failure the year prior, and finally had the opportunity to replace her liver.
Just as Jones was beginning surgery prep however, her doctors came into her room with a strange request that they’d never asked of a patient before: Would Jones be willing to give up her liver donation to another patient?
23-year-old Abigail Flores had just been air-lifted to the hospital after suffering from a complete liver failure. Her doctors predicted that she only had a few hours left to live.
When Jones heard of Flores’ situation, she had no doubt about her answer: “Yes.”
Jones later explained, “All I could think about was that I had more time to wait a little longer on a liver and she didn’t have any time. If I had taken the liver, and she had died when I could have saved her and got another liver, I just knew that’s what I had to do.”
Once Flores had somewhat recovered from her life-saving surgery, she and Jones met. Flores was overwhelmed. “…my husband and I, we just got married and we want to have kids. [Jones] gave me this opportunity to be able to do that later on in life,” Flores said through tears.
No one expected that in just a few days, Jones’ own good deed would be rewarded.
Exactly four days after Jones gave her liver donation to Flores, doctors came back to her with incredible news: they had found a new liver match.
Jones is now recovering alongside Flores in Baylor University Medical Center.
“Everything just kind of fell right into line,” she said. “I mean, you have to wait for a liver a long time. I had to wait four days and I was able to save her.”
Watch the news clip documenting Jones and Flores’ story here:
