Teacher donates kidney to pupil, saves her life

The teacher with her pupil at the hospital

A teacher in the US has saved the life of her 5-year-old pupil by donating one of her kidneys to save the child's life.

A US preschool teacher, Beth Battista, when she heard that her pupil was unable to find a suitable kidney donor after a long search happily offered hers.

She told the BBC: "I knew I just had to get tested rather than watch her suffer."

The surgery was successful and Beth the teacher and Lyla her pupil are now recovering after the successful transplant operation which happened on Wednesday, February 22.


Mrs Battista who has two children said that she heard about Lyla's condition from the young girls mother's Facebook page after her mother Dena Carreyn shared a Facebook post about the girl's desperate need for a living kidney donor.

She said after reading the post, she could not not ignore the suffering of the five-year-old child


About a year ago the little girl was diagnosed with microscopic polyangiitis (MPA), a rare autoimmune disorder which requires 12 hours of dialysis a day.


The teacher, Beth contacted the the UW Health Transplant Program in Wisconsin and, after undergoing two tests in July and August, it was found that she was a match with the girl.

It was especially amazing because it was a rare match. Beth needed to be the right blood group with few antibodies picked up from previous bouts of sickness. She also needed to have matching antigens with Lyla.


The operation which took place last week required surgeons to make four small incisions in her stomach in order to pull the kidney out, before taking it to Lyla, who was in a nearby hospital ward.