Due to his desperation in needing a kidney, Patrick Mertens asked his daughter Kayla to post a request on Facebook last January.
The 64-year-old Mertens, who works as a school custodian, had not bothered asking his co-workers at Kimball Elementary School in Kimball, Minnesota, as he searched for a donor.
He did not want to inconvenience any of the teachers at the school, and he thought they had already done enough for him as they were able to set up a fundraiser to support his dialysis.
But when a third-grade teacher at the school, Erin Durga, saw the Facebook post, she knew that she wanted to help.
So she did not waste time and reached out. After some tests were done, she learned that she was a match for the school's custodian. Thus she made her decision.
Lynda, the wife of Mertens, shared who expects a teacher to give their kidney to a custodian.
When Durga was a child, she shared that her father was a school band director for 30 years, and there is a piece of fatherly advice that she took to her heart, befriend the people in a school, especially those who are building workers.
Mertens and Durga first met after Durga moved to Fairhaven, Minnesota, in 2011, where she began teaching at Kimball Elementary.
The same year that Durga started, Mertens had taken to cleaning her room after finishing his other tasks, including sweeping the cafeteria and replenishing the toilet paper.
According to the Washington Post, in just a month into the school year, from cleaning Durga's room, they got into chatting about their children.
The teacher learned that the wife of Mertens ran a day-care facility, and that is where she sent her son, Rhone. At the day-care, kids call Mertens 'Papa.'
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The 38-year-old Durga was feeling overwhelmingly fortunate since the birth of Rhone in 2009; she felt an urge to perform a meaningful act for someone.
Durga had considered serving as a surrogate after learning that the daughter of a co-worker struggled to become pregnant. But it turned out that the opportunity for generosity was just right in front of her.
It was in February 2018 when Mertens realized the seriousness of his condition. A visit to the emergency room, where he learned that his kidneys were already failing, confirmed his condition. His doctor also told him that he needed a new kidney. However, the search for a match could probably take at least three to 10 years.
The doctor explained to Lynda that her husband would probably die if he will not get a new kidney within five years.
According to the Living Kidney Donors Network, not less than 93,000 individuals in the United States are waiting for a kidney transplant. What makes it worse in the case of Mertens was that he has Type O blood, which is the hardest match, as mentioned by the living-donor coordinator at M Health Fairview, Annie Doyle, St. Cloud Times reported.
Despite the challenging tests in finding out if she was the right donor, on July 3, the kidney transplant pushed through, making Mertens and his family deeply grateful for the sacrifice that Durga made, StarTribune reported.
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