A mother at a primary school has donated a kidney to the father of one of her son's friends after hearing he was in desperate need for a transplant.
Katy Ludlow, 34, heard about Ravi Nihal's plight, while dropping her son to Cecil Road Primary School in Kent.
The 43-year-old father-of-three fell in in 2015 when his kidneys began to fail. He was forced to travel up to Guy's Hospital in London for three sessions of dialysis a week. As a result he had to give up his job with the National Grid as a supervisor.
Ms Ludlow agreed to be tested to be a kidney donor after speaking to Mr Nihal's wife Nish at the school gate. Amazingly, medics determined Ms Ludlow was a match for Mr Nihal and agreed to go through with the life-changing surgery.
Before the operation, Ms Ludlow and Mr Nihal were on nodding terms at the school gate, although their children were firm friends. Now both families have a life-long bond.
Mr Nihal told The Sun: 'I’ll never be able to repay Katy for what she did. She’s an incredible person to do something like this for someone who was almost a stranger. She has done something that people I've known all my life wouldn't have done.'
Ms Ludlow added: 'Our two families are like one big family now. I’ve no regrets. I’d do it all over again.
'Ravi could have been on the transplant list for many years and I feel fantastic knowing I've saved his family from that. It's been brilliant seeing the change in him since the transplant. He has a new lease of life and is smiling again.'
According to NHS Direct, there were 3,000 kidney transplants carried out in the UK between April 2014 and April 2015, although there were still 5,000 people on the waiting list.
On average, there are approximately 100 to 150 living donations each year.
