She waited 7 years for a kidney. Hours from a transplant, flight delays diverted it

The search lasted years, but Angel Goss finally had a kidney, reports television station TMJ4. Doctors had her ready and prepped in an Ohio hospital, the station says, and waiting for the kidney to arrive from South Carolina.

But they didn’t account for Hurricane Michael, which pounded Florida before moving into the Carolinas with tropical storm-force winds and heavy rains.

“They got the news that (the kidney) couldn’t be flown out,” Goss told Cincinnati’s Fox19.

The flight that was supposed to bring the kidney to the 38-year-old mother of three was stuck in the storm.

”The kidney was coming from South Carolina but the storm prevented the transfer,” said Serena Smith, spokeswoman with The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. “Our transplant center was told the kidney was transplanted locally instead,” she said in an email.

Kristine Neal with the South Carolina Organ & Tissue Recovery Services confirmed the kidney was donated to someone else locally.

“I didn’t want to hear it,” Goss told TMJ4. “I didn’t want to believe it.” (I thought,) “It’s going to come, and when it comes, it’s going to be just for me,” she remembers thinking.

Goss has been on the waiting list for a kidney transplant since 2011, Fox19 reports. She was diagnosed with Lupus in 2008 and survived chemotherapy to learn later that her kidneys were damaged and eventually failed, according to the television station.

But Goss told the television stations that the blood transfusions she has had over the years has made it hard for doctors to find a match for her kidney, estimating only 2 percent of people could match the organ donation she needs.

Hurricane Michael caused travel problems around the southeast after it came ashore along the Florida Panhandle as a Category 4 storm, causing devastating damage to coastal communities.

The storm made its way through Georgia and the Carolinas, bringing with it heavy wind and rain and canceling more than 25,000 flights in the region, according to CNBC.

The waiting list for kidney transplants is the longest for any organ, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which connects donations with people who need transplants. There were more than 95,000 people on the kidney transplant waiting list as of October 17, the organization reports.

The Kidney Foundation says the average wait time for a kidney transplant is three to five years. The length of the wait is determined by geographic area, match with available kidneys, blood type and whether a patient has had blood transfusions or failed transplants.

Charles Duncan: 843-626-0301, @duncanreporting

Correction: An earlier version of this article quoted a TMJ4 story that reported the kidney was ruined when the ice melted as it waited to be flown to Ohio. Transplant officials in Ohio and South Carolina both said the organ was given to someone locally instead.

This story was originally published October 18, 2018 at 1:40 PM.