Posted on 05/29/2026 10:05:20 AM PDT by V_TWIN
A Michigan grandpa was killed by the kidney donation he thought would save his life — because the organ donor was infected with rabies from a skunk in a medical nightmare that could affect other organ recipients, according to health officials.
Barney Kurowicki, of Tecumseh, Michigan, had been on dialysis for two years when he received a kidney transplant from James Martin, a 59-year-old Idaho father of three, in December 2024, Scripps News reported this week.
Martin had died the previous year of what his family believed was heart problems, said his widow Kim Martin told the outlet.
“We had no idea,” Kim Martin said of his rabies infection.
But soon after Kurowicki got the transplant at the University of Toledo Medical Center in Ohio, the retired postal worker was struck by tremors, lower extremity weakness, confusion — and an inexplicable fear of water that tipped off doctors, according to a CDC report cited by the outlet.
He died within days, according to the report.
Testing and an investigation led researchers to determine he had contracted rabies from Martin — who had been scratched by a skunk on the left shin while rescuing his family kitten from the animal in fall 2024.
“He’s like, ‘I’m — I’ll be fine. It’s just a scratch. I’ll just put, you know, Neosporin on it, and I’ll be fine after I get it cleaned,” Kim said.
Martin’s family believed he had died from heart-related problems, so his other organs were donated to recipients and researchers in six states.
The organs he donated were then tested for more common diseases such as HIV and hepatitis before being shipped to transplant recipients — but they were not tested for rabies, which kills about 10 people in the US annually.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The incubation period is pretty long—up to 21 days, if I remember correctly.
The docs don’t actually CARE if the organ is carrying a disease like rabies…as long as they get their big payday!
Sounds like it
For humans it is usually days but can could be up to 3 months.
Depending on species, it can be up to 6 months. When I sent two of my stepdaughter’s cat from the US to Japan, the cats had to remain “in quarantine” for 180 days, as that is just beyond the longest incubation period (from exposure to becoming symptomatic) for domestic cats.
“In quarantine” meant nothing to the cats - just a 6 months delay to ship to Japan. But Japan is very strict about making sure imported animals do not have rabies
Rabies can have very long incubation periods and can manifest even years after being exposed.
People treat interactions with wild animals too casually. Rabies is much more common than it used to be because of the introduction of live traps. People spread rabies by dumping rabid animals in new territories.
Hydrophobia usually isn’t an actual fear of water, but a problem where the rabies virus causes the throat to spasm or lock when a victim tries to swallow fluids.
In the meantime, the virus puts the salivary glands on overdrive, causing the victim to drool virus-laden saliva, since he cannot swallow it. It really is a clever pair of mechanisms to make the virus more transmissible. If evil extraterrestrials were to design a virus to kill us off, I can’t imagine they wouldn’t consider something like this.
Bill Gates is taking notes.
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