Local woman gives her husband the gift of life, donates kidney

PHILADELPHIA, PA (WTXF) - It's a good Friday for the Fox family.

Bert Fox is recovering at Hahnemann University Hospital after a successful lifesaving transplant surgery. And it wouldn't have happened without his wife, the organ donor.

Part of her, is now part of him, and it doesn't get any simpler or more complicated than that. Two days out of organ donor and organ transplant surgery, husband and wife Bert and Angel have much to be thankful for.

"If he had to wait for somebody, it would be three to five years before he would get a kidney," Angel told

Both were prepped for surgery on Wednesday.

"What they do is make sure they see that the kidney is viable and okay before they cut me open to put it in," Bert explained.

Doctors removed Angel's left kidney and implanted it in her husband two hours later.

"This is Bert's second organ transplant," Dr. Stephen Guy told Fox 29. "He had a liver transplant 30 years ago and, unfortunately, the medicine used to help his body accept the new liver eventually caused his kidneys to start failing."

"It was nothing I would say no to," Angel explained. "I said 'I'm giving you my kidney.'"

"It's people like Angel, who just gave her husband the gift of life, so empowering because they don't have to be on the national waiting list," Hahnemann's transplant coordinator Melissa Coleman told Fox 29.

And as April now knows, being an organ donor can save a life.