Heroic South Yorkshire dad explains it was a ‘simple maths’ decision to donate his kidney to a stranger
20 October 2025
Ben Bryan, age 32, a father of two from Rotherham, selflessly donated a kidney to a stranger helping three seriously ill people get the transplant they had been waiting for.
Ben was inspired to donate after seeing an appeal but was told he would need to lose weight beforehand. A few years and a remarkable 10 stone of weight loss later, Ben saw another appeal on Facebook for a young boy needing a kidney and decided to try again.
Explaining why he decided to undergo such a noble donation, Ben said: “It was a simple maths equation for me, I only need one kidney and someone else needs the spare. I knew I could change the suffering and improve the life of someone else.”
In this one act of kindness, the railway worker started a chain of donations, that resulted in three people receiving life changing kidney transplants.
Ben, who underwent his donation at the Northern General Hospital in April 2025, added: “If you can donate then I'd say do it, the impact on my life as a whole has been incredibly minimal, a minor inconvenience for me has made such a huge difference to someone else and their quality of life.
"I couldn’t have asked for better from the hospital team, the communication was brilliant from start to finish. My Living Donor Co-ordinator Caroline was always there to answer questions and put my mind at ease, even down to holding my hand during the general anaesthetic.”
Caroline Basarab-Horwath, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Non directed donors like Ben demonstrate exceptional generosity, taking time out of their daily lives to undergo testing and surgery to help someone they have never met. By donating into the UK National Living Kidney Sharing Scheme, they can initiate a chain of transplants involving incompatible donor-recipient pairs and can help up to three people receive a kidney transplant - just like Ben did. Ultimately changing the lives of three people and shortening the transplant waiting list by three”.
If you would like to find out more about non directed kidney donation please visit: http://www.giveakidney.org/
To find out more about kidney donation visit: https://www.donateakidney.co.uk/
ENDS
By Lily Naylor
