Kidney donor found for ten-year old girl

By Sharon Stevens

KSDK -- They are years apart in age, but a retired Air Force colonel and a fourth grade student will soon be partners in a transplant operation.

55-year-old Colonel Mike Cole of Swansea is donating a kidney to his neighbor, ten-year-old Sabrina Voss.

Cole says when he heard that Sabrina needed a kidney last year, he offered one of his, not knowing whether it was a match. It was.

Sabrina, a student at Wolf Branch Elementary School, has been on dialysis for nearly a year, waiting for a donor.

The transplant takes place on Friday.

"Thousands of people die every year waiting for a transplant. If I can donate at my age to a little girl, other people certainly can too," Cole says.

Sabrina will attend school for a half-day on Thursday; she'll be gone for about a month after the operation.