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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 ...
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Wow. Tragic
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You gotta get up priiiiiiity early in the morning to get something past health officials. 🙄
Got the dern hy-dro-phobee, that's what he did.
Smarter than the average bear. Hydrophobia? Whatever could it be?
If I got scratched by ANY animal I wasn’t familiar with, wild (or domestic) I would get checked out ASAP.
I knew rabies was bad juju before I read this story.
Terrible way to go.
I wonder how the kitten made out?
👍
Better than Martin did I would guess
Annoying Jill Tracy.
Do better, NY Post!
Regards,
Sad
Who checked the kidney Igor?.
QUESTION: How could the organ donor not have displayed unambiguous symptoms of rabies?
Regards,
They say this is a rare occurrence yet it has actually happened 3 times in the past twenty years.
Still rare, but it can effect a lot of recipients. Time to update their testing protocol.
Sometimes I wonder if “protocol” has replaced common sense in the medical profession, particularly after COVID.
I don’t understand why the donor didn’t exhibit symptoms of rabies which are pretty horrific from what I have read.
The reference to Hydrophobia made me look again to make sure it was not was from the Babylon Bee. How on earth could a doctor test for Hydrophobia? Spray a mist in his face.
Given the headline, I suppose some donors have rabies knowingly and on purpose.
Went to HS with a guy who had his spleen taken out due to a motorcycle accident. Was at a friends house and a puppy bit him. I guess he had been told about situations like that but he chose to ignore it and was dead within 1-2 weeks.
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