Danbury native Ryan Dasilva ate hamburger contaminated by E. coli bacteria. [...] because after each kidney transplant, the match for the next one is harder to find, Ryan's hope of getting a third kidney was very, very small. [...] through remarkable medical networks, enormously hard work, and the selflessness of three people who volunteered to be donors -- including Dasilva's father, Rolando Dasilva Sr. of Southbury -- On Dec. 19, transplant surgeons at Yale-New Haven Hospital removed a kidney from Rolando Dasilva Sr. and flew it by a commercial carrier to the University of Toledo Medical Center. It got flown from Toledo to the Maine Medical Center in Portland where it was a good match for Gary Rutter, 55, of Old Orchard Beach, who had been suffering from kidney disease most of his life. [...] in Maine, Hallie Twomey, 43, who never met the Dasilvas, nor Schulberg, nor Knapp, nor Rutter, donated one of her kidneys because she thought it was a good thing to do. Properly stored in ice, preserving fluid and in a Styrofoam container, a kidney can last outside a body for as long as 36 hours. The three-hospital saga began in the summer of 2013, when Rolando Dasilva Sr. approached Yale setting up a kidney swap with other patients. Once the hospital had determined Dasilva was a good donor for others, they gathered the needed information about his kidneys and blood type and went to the National Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, a computer registry run by the United Network of Organ Sharing.
Three hospitals, three kidneys, three lives saved
