Egg Harbor City residents Nina and Kay Saria decided to ask Craig's List users for a kidney after Nina went into kidney failure.
Glenn Calderbank was looking online for building materials to purchase when he came across a misplaced ad on Craig's List that tugged at his heart strings.
Calderbank, a contractor, lost his first wife to kidney failure several years ago. The strange ad he came across in the construction supplies listings was asking for the donation of a healthy kidney.
And he had one to spare.
The diagnosis
Nina Saria, an Egg Harbor City resident, had just entered her 30s when she began having some muscle soreness.
"I thought it was just because of exercise or something," said Saria, who originally came to the U.S. from the Republic of Georgia in 2005.
However, the pain persisted, so she went to see her doctor. Saria was told she was in kidney failure due to micropolyangitits -- an ill-defined autoimmune disease.
"It was all of a sudden," she said. "I had no symptoms before that."
Saria was put on dialysis more than a year ago, and has been on the donation list at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital the entire time.
While she waited for a donor, Saria said many friends and relatives offered to help, but they either weren't compatible with her or got scared and backed out.
So, with her hope wearing thin, Nina's husband Kay -- a native of Russia -- decided to take a non-traditional route to hopefully helping his ailing wife.
"My husband came up with the idea to put an ad on Craig's List," she said. "I got a lot of prayers, but no one to donate. I wanted to give up, but Kay didn't."
Finally, the Sarias received a message from a man who had an understanding of Nina's dilemma, and wanted to meet with her and her husband.
"I didn't want to go because he was a stranger and I was nervous, but my husband said he had talked to him and he was very nice and we should go," she remembered.
The donor
Calderbank of Berlin, New Jersey, married his first wife in 2001.
"She had diabetes, but a couple of years went by and she started getting sick more then normal," Calderbank said. "We found out her kidneys were failing."
Hoping to help his wife, Calderbank was tested, but was not a match.
After waiting for nearly two years, Calderbank's wife received a kidney and pancreas from a cadaver. But a year later, her body began to reject the organs.
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"It was so bad she was scheduled to have them taken out because they were poisoning her," Calderbank said. "But she died in 2011 while doing dialysis."
When he saw Saria's listing on Craig's List, he knew it was his cue to help.
"Since I remarried, I quit drinking -- I'm four years sober now -- and I'm a contractor," Calderbank said. "I was looking for materials on Craig's List when I saw their ad. It was listed in construction materials by accident."
When he first saw the ad, he said it really "hit home" because he had run something similar in the local newspaper for his first wife when she was battling kidney failure.
"It was like the screen was talking to me," he said. "I knew I was going to be a match for her. I thought about it, then emailed them and shared my story."
Nina Saria remembered Calderbank saying he wanted to give his kidney to someone who would take care of it, and have a healthy and thriving life after the procedure.
"I wanted to meet them," Calderbank said. "They were kind of reluctant at first, but they came over and I saw that they were two nice, clean-cut people. So I showed them my scrapbook."
Calderbank had kept a scrapbook of his first wife and everything they went through together.
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"There was a lot of pain, but I don't want to forget anything, so I kept everything," he said. "There are the ads, pictures, everything, so (Nina) could see that she is living what I had done before."
After looking at the scrapbook and hearing Calderbank's story, Nina Saria began to cry.
The decision
"We talked for about an hour and when we were done talking I said, 'OK. I decided I'm going to give you my kidney. I know I'm match," Calderbank told Saria. "I knew there was no way I saw that ad by accident. If there are angels, then my wife did this."
Calderbank took days off of work for testing and went through all the procedures for three months during the summer.
"I did test after test, and turns out I'm in perfect health," he said. He is also a match for Nina Saria.
Surgery is scheduled for Dec. 1 at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital.
"I'm scared to death," he said. "I've never had any medical problems and I am, on purpose, going to have my body opened up and have a part taken out. But I'm doing it because I want to help.
"I want to save this woman's life because, in this rare instance, I'm the only one who can."
Nina Saria said she wants to spread the word about how a one-time stranger is making the effort to save her life.
"Not a lot of people know much about kidney donation," Saria said. "I really wanted people to know that he was a stranger from Craig's List and now we're friends. People can't believe how someone can be so nice and brave. So, I think we need to spread the word around that donating a kidney is not deadly and maybe we can save more people who are on dialysis like me.
Saria's doctors believe this surgery will change her life.
"The doctors think I'll be better once the transplant is done," she said. "It should last a long time, they think, because I'm young and active and healthy other than my kidney now. So, I really think (Glenn) can save me and I can get my life back.
As a thank you, Saria started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to help Calderbank through the entire process. To donate, go to GoFundMe.com/helpmydonor.
Kelly Roncace may be reached at kroncace@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @kellyroncace. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook.
