EXCHANGE: A friend needed a kidney and he responded

PEORIA, Ill. (AP) - Luke Hartmann has a long history of giving.

He served in the Air Force after high school. Now he’s father of two, a Cub Scout leader and volunteer fire man.

“I’m sure Michelle gets sick of all the stuff I volunteer for,” he said of his wife. “But I knew at that moment that I could change somebody’s life for a long time, not just maybe helping out here or there by cleaning up this mess or that mess.”

Last year, he became an organ donor when he gave a kidney to his friend Jonathan Clement.

The pair had met 10 years earlier at Illinois Central College, where both were studying diesel-powered equipment technology. Almost immediately, they became friends.

“He was the very quiet, very intelligent (one),” Clement said. “Big brother, little brother type thing.”

Hartmann agrees that they were close, though he characterizes the relationship in different terms.

“They called me grandpa because most of the other guys were straight out of high school, whereas I had four years of military and then I came,” Hartmann said.

In their time at ICC, Clement and Hartmann became close, along with Hartmann’s then-new wife, Michelle. The couple was originally from Dubuque, and Clement helped make central Illinois a home-away-from-home during their two years here. Clement, who lives in East Peoria, would escort the pair to his family’s farm near Carlock.

“His family kind of took us in and became our second family down here,” Michelle said.

During their time in school, Hartmann had no idea that Clement had been dealing with kidney issues since childhood. An earlier surgery had helped stave off further damage to his scarred kidneys, but in his mid-20s their function began to steeply decline.

“You can only act like you’re Superman so for long,” Clement said.

When his kidney function reached below 20 percent, he was placed on the list for a kidney donation - a list of 80,000 names. Several family members were tested in hopes of donation, but none were a match. So Clement’s mother posted a plea on Facebook in October 2015 with instructions for how to contact the transplant office at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center.

Hartmann, always a giver, felt compelled to respond.

After confirmation that he was a match, the transplant was scheduled for April 11, 2016. A year later, both are in good health and closer friends than ever before.

“What do you tell somebody who’s giving you the gift of life? Thank you? It doesn’t seem that there’s anything I could do,” Clement said. “It’s like, how much do you value your life and your lifestyle?”

Hartmann admits the decision to give up a kidney gave him pause, but the more he researched, the more secure he became in his decision. When a kidney is removed from a healthy donor, the remaining kidney grows so a single kidney does the work of two.

“You can live a healthy life with only one kidney, and, honestly, I would rather see somebody live a better life because of what I donated versus me being selfish, saying I just want my two kidneys,’” Hartmann said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s family, friends or even somebody you don’t know. It’s worth taking that step that you can help somebody’s life.”

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Source: (Peoria) Journal Star, https://bit.ly/2ow7OLO

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Information from: Journal Star, https://pjstar.com