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USTRANSCOM sailor donates kidney to save master chief’s wife

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. (USTCNS) --- For Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Elliot Riley, being able to save a life was as simple as surfing the Web.

Less than a year ago, Riley, a corpsman with the Global Patient Movement Requirements Center, was reading on-line news when he came across an article about the high number of people awaiting organ transplants and how only a fraction of these people will ever receive the organs they need to survive.

Featured in that article was information about an organization that strives to match potential organ donors with people in need. This service, matchingdonors.com, peaked Riley’s curiosity and led the corpsman learn more about organ donation.

Riley couldn’t believe how many people were listed on the website. He read page after page of heart-wrenching stories that convinced him to register as a possible kidney donor.

Almost immediately, he received his first response by a potential match, and although medical factors precluded the donation, he didn’t have to wait long before hearing from another person in desperate need—someone to whom he immediately felt akin.

Retired Navy Master Chief Petty Officer Cameron Towner called Riley on behalf of his wife, Hoo Ping, who is in need of a kidney.

Shortly after being contacted, arrangements were made for Riley to travel to Baltimore for medical screening and to meet the Towner family. “Getting to know them made me more excited at the possibility of helping,” Riley said. “She has a lot left to live.”

To establish whether he could be a successful match with Hoo Ping, Riley had vial after vial of blood taken, a CT scan and met with “everyone from a psychologist to an urologist,” he said.

According to matchingdonors.com, “In 1993 there were 31,000 people on the national organ transplant waiting list and by 2005 there were 90,000 people. There are approximately 17 people a day who die while on the list awaiting donors. Although live organ donation has been performed successfully since 1954, there are only six to seven thousand live organ donations per year.”

In July, Riley will add to that number when he undergoes surgery to donate a kidney to Hoo Ping. His concern was partly relieved when he learned that the operation will be conducted at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, one of the top hospitals in the world.

While Riley has had overwhelming support from his wife Becky, coworkers, family and friends, they are not without their concerns. Riley’s mother, Lisa, initially expressed her shock that her son would consider donating a kidney to someone he had never even met and was concerned that her son was so young.

“Once I thought about it, I could understand,” Lisa said. “I could see him doing something like this.”

Riley’s father, William, said that such a selfless act is characteristic of his son. “This is the way Elliot is; he knows what he wants to do,” William said. “What a wonderful gift to give someone.”

Riley’s father said this is also characteristic of his son’s personality growing up. “He was always breaking new ground, and even in the Boy Scouts he was a natural leader,” William said. “He is always off doing something different.”

Five years ago, after graduating high school in Seminole, Florida, Elliot joined the Navy and became a medic because he wanted to do something out of the ordinary that allowed him to help others. Today, his job at the GPMRC allows him to help others on a global scale. The GPMRC staff is responsible for receiving and executing patient movement evacuation requests from around the world. Simply put, they orchestrate getting sick and injured people to the medical care they need.

Riley is also father to two-year-old Hannah, and he and Becky are expecting baby number two in October. Due to the pregnancy, Becky will be unable to be at his bedside, but will remain in their home at Scott AFB looking after Hannah and anxiously awaiting word of her husband’s condition.

Riley’s mother plans to be with her son before and after the surgery and serve as the link between him and Becky.

After surgery, Riley will remain in the hospital under observation for about six days and should return to work within six weeks. He also expects to be fully recovered in time for the birth of his new baby.

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