College student donates kidney to stranger: ‘Lord sent us an angel’
LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT/Gray News) - As college students across the nation are making spring break plans, one Kentucky student is preparing to give a piece of herself to a complete stranger.
Cherish Strunk, a 25-year-old surgical technology student at Somerset Community College, will soon be donating a kidney to Danny Fitch. Strunk didn’t know Fitch, who is a former coal miner, a church deacon and a devoted family man, but she wanted to help him.
“Ever since I was younger, my mind has just been about helping people,” Strunk said. “I felt that I was needed in that situation and that I could help.”
Fitch has been living with Type 1 diabetes, a diagnosis he received at 10 years old. It eventually led to kidney failure, WKYT reports.
“Now, the Lord’s been good to me,” Fitch said. “I never did let diabetes control me. I ain’t never had no major surgeries, really, just kidney failure.”
With a kidney transplant being his best option, Fitch began searching for a donor in August. His family decided to share his story on social media.
“That’s what we prayed about at our church and stuff. That’s what I was wanting, something before dialysis. Lord sent us an angel,” he said.
That angel is Strunk.
“I had seen a mutual friend post on Facebook that he needed a kidney and everything, and I just kind of felt something,” she said.
Strunk reached out to the family, and the matching process began.
“It’s always scary because you don’t know if you’re gonna be a match, so you’re gonna start this process and you’re scared of letting people down if you’re not. But I just had that feeling that we would match, so I just went for it and we did,” she said.
Once strangers, Strunk and Fitch are now a part of each other’s lives forever.
“As far as we’re concerned, she’s part of us now. The love of our family, we think the same of her. To us, Cherish has got what we call a servant’s heart,” Fitch’s wife said. “It takes somebody very special to do what she is doing, and I thank God that she did. I thank God that she reached out when she did, and we just thank her for everything and hope and pray that she always follows her heart like she has this time.”
The transplant is scheduled to take place on Thursday in Lexington.
“Its been a blessing. It just touches you knowing that somebody’s there to help,” Fitch said.
The Fitches say they hope this story can give others needing a transplant hope that their donor is somewhere out there, too.
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