Kidney donor shares her experience as Nebraska reports organ transplant record in 2024

LINCOLN, Neb. (KLKN) – Nebraska saw a record number of organ transplants in 2024.

According to Nebraska Medicine, there were 396 procedures done, including 185 kidney transplants and 150 liver transplants.

A local living kidney donor is advocating for even more donations.

“Through tissue donation, organ donation, it can help a lot of people,” said Sue Venteicher. “Not just those that are receiving it, but all the people that love them.”

Venteicher gave her kidney to a man she didn’t even know back in 2017. She was inspired by a close friend who lost her son to kidney failure.

Her recipient was a 71-year-old man named Dennis, who was told he only had three months left to live.

She and Dennis have since become friends.

“The thing that really touched me, is he said the hardest part about being sick is looking into his wife’s eyes that he had been married to for 46 years and seeing constant fear and worry,” Venteicher said.

The transplant became a part of an 18-person kidney donation chain, one of the largest known donation chains in the United States.

That’s when if you want to give your organ to someone in particular, but they don’t match, you donate to someone else.

That frees up another organ, and the chain continues.

A local transplantation surgeon said the jump in transplants is due to Nebraska seeing more out-of-state organ recipients, and an increase in advanced technology.

“We’ve also got new technologies available to the transplant team so that when somebody donates an organ, we’re able to take organs that we couldn’t use transplants before and successfully use them to help people today,” said Dr. Alan Langnas with Nebraska Medicine.

Organ recipients from 18 other states had a transplant done in Nebraska last year.

“There’s really even more people out there that we haven’t offered the opportunity to in the United States,” Langnas said. “There’s a huge need. There’s no question about it, and people can have a dramatic profound difference in other people’s lives.”

Venteicher says her advocacy is rooted in the people who still need help.

There are over 100,000 people in the United States on the transplant waiting list.

“The key to that for me is education,” Venteicher said. “The more people learn about deceased donation, living donation, it’s less scary. They realize how much it can help.”

She still keeps in touch with her recipient, Dennis.

He’s now 79 years old, and she said he honors her gift by staying healthy and walking up to 6 miles a day.