Kidney chain reaction gives life to 30 people

A year ago, an electrical contractor named Rick Ruzzamenti walked into a California hospital and offered to donate a kidney, no strings attached.

This set in motion what became the world’s longest living donor kidney transplant chain, which ended at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood when a Joliet man became the last of 30 people to receive a kidney as a result of Ruzzamenti’s original donation.

“This kidney chain has brought me back to life,” said Don Terry, 46.