We’ve all heard of people who contributed an organ to a friend or family member, but what about someone who donated their kidney to a totally unfamiliar person in Manitoba, who lived three provinces away?

PG’s Carolynne Burkholder-James, one of 200 non-directed anonymous donors who take part in a national kidney-paired donation program, did exactly that.

Blood types are used to match anonymous donors with recipients of kidney which are usually known as chained kidney donations.

According to Burkholder-James, the procedure leading up to her surgery in Vancouver in December was fairly meticulous.

Before you donate your kidney, they make absolutely certain that you are in excellent health. After some tests here in Prince George and others in Vancouver, my surgery was performed there, and the kidney was then flown by Air Canada all the way to Winnipeg.

Burkholder-James exhorts others to follow her example.

“In Canada, not many people make this decision. I would advise more individuals to give it some thought. Because I was a non-directed donor, lots of people have family members who are eager to donate on their behalf, but they don’t match because they don’t have the same blood type. This is how the kidney chain works.

After reading an article in the New York Times more than ten years ago, she first learned about chained kidney donations.

Essentially, it means that if you have one non-directed or altruistic or non-directed donor, they may have an effect on a number of individuals. Yes, I thought, “I’d love to do that.”

“A few years ago, I determined that the time was right for me. Since my husband and I had finished having children and I had established my job, I decided that now would be a good time to accomplish this.

The three-time mother of children, Burkholder-James, acknowledged that the procedure was actually less painful than a C-section.

Burkholder-James, who is Vanderhoof-born, is a public prosecutor at Marcotte Law in PG.