A waitress from Georgia has reinstored our faith in humanity and made us believe that people still do things unselfishly without any vested interest. Mariana Villarreal, a waitress at Hooters donated one of her kidneys to a long-time patron who lost both his kidneys to cancer.
Villarreal works for a Hooters restaurant in the city of Roswell, 19 miles North of Atlanta. She was a new recruit at the restaurant and barely knew the man in question – Don Thomas – who benefitted from the kidney transplant, thanks to her benevolent gesture.
The waitress heard of Thomas' plight and offered him one of her own kidneys, which he readily accepted.
"I said, 'Well, I have two kidneys, do you want one of mine?'" Villarreal recounted to WXIA-TV.
"My reply was, 'I will accept it,'" said Thomas.
So what prompted Villarreal to help a complete stranger, you wonder? She explained that she was not able to do anything to help her ailing grandmother, who recently passed away due to kidney failure and, so when she heard of Thomas' trouble, she felt personally motivated to help him.
"If (Don) can live two more years, happy as he's ever been, that's fine with me. That's not up to me. I did my part, now it's God's turn to keep him alive," she said.
She also posted a picture with the Hooters patron on her Instagram account:
The surgery was performed at Atlanta's Piedmont Transplant Institute on Friday, May 29, and was a success, according to the doctors. Dr. Harrison Pollinger says that both Mariana and Thomas will be able to lead normal lives following he operation. People can live their entire life on a single kidney, as only one kidney is necessary for performing regular kidney functions.
Here are the two patients post the surgery: