Man thanks donor family for kidney

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), Feb 12, 2006 | by CARY LEIDER VOGRIN THE GAZETTE

A New York man who received a desperately needed kidney transplant has found friendship in the family of his donor -- and information he had craved about the man who he says gave him new life.

Just hours after Fred D'Amico of Brooklyn learned the identity of his donor from a story in The Gazette last Sunday, he made a decision: He would call the man's family.

He found a number easily via a computer search.

"Hi, this is Fred," he said when Cindy Arndt, his donor's longtime partner and "soulmate," picked up the phone in Colorado Springs. "I don't want to make you uncomfortable. I just want to say hello, tell you thank you and also express my sympathy."

They talked for about 20 minutes.

"When I told her who I was, I think she was taken aback," D'Amico said last week. "There was five or six seconds of silence, but it felt like five or six minutes."

But then the words came easily.

"She said she was waiting for this moment to happen."

Said Arndt: "He was so gracious. We talked like I had talked to him for years."

D'Amico learned that his donor, 53-year-old Bob Thomas, was born in Germany to a German mother and a U.S. father who was in the Army. That he spent a decade in the Air Force and played guitar in the Air Force Band. That he had grandchildren. That he led what D'Amico called "a freestyling and wonderful life." That he was generous.

"This is a man that gave me life," D'Amico said.

The two talked again later that day. D'Amico also got to speak with Thomas' mother, Pat Curry.

D'Amico, 61, wasn't the only one to receive one of Thomas' kidneys.

Another Brooklyn man, Izya Dukorsky, 58, also underwent a transplant, and the two men say they are now like brothers. With 65,000 people nationwide awaiting a kidney, the odds of two kidneys from the same donor being a match to two people who went to the same dialysis center are slim to none.

The transplants occurred Dec. 6, two days after Thomas died. He had fallen and hit his head Dec. 2 and died at Penrose Hospital on Dec. 4. Until The Gazette's story, the men knew only that their donor was a man from Colorado.

D'Amico said he was at his computer at 5 a.m. last Sunday to read the story online. He read it again. Studied the photo of a long- haired Thomas playing an electric guitar and wearing -- of all things -- a New York Yankees baseball hat.

D'Amico's daughter Deena, who lives a few blocks away with her family, called after reading it herself: "Dad, this is everything you've been waiting for," she said.

His wife, Petrina, read it while D'Amico made her pancakes.

"I asked my wife: 'What do you think about me calling?'"

Dukorsky also plans to call.

And both men said they want to meet Arndt and Curry.

Now that they're off dialysis and free of its constraints -- they had to spend four hours on the machine three times a week -- they can travel, go on vacation. Have a normal life.

"I'm coming to Colorado as soon as my doctor tells me I can fly and the weather gets warmer," D'Amico said.

"We're coming together," Dukorsky said.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0236 or cary.vogrin@gazette.com