Charlie Pitts usually wasn’t on the road at lunchtime, but the business meeting ran longer than he’d anticipated. The Cumming resident reached for the radio in his car and tuned it from his preferred morning drive-time station to 104.7 WFSH the Fish, a favorite Christian station.
It was a move that led, ultimately, to an operating table, and a life saved.
An announcer told listeners that an Atlanta-area woman desperately needed a kidney. She had only one and it was failing. The announcer asked any would-be donors to call the station for more information.
Pitts drove in silence a few moments, then called his wife, Robin, and told her what he’d heard. Should he call? His wife, whom he met in the seventh grade, said yes.
Pitts called the station and learned that the woman was Peggy Brannen of McDonough, a 58-year-old grandmother. The station suggested Pitts call Emory Healthcare Transplant Center on the slim chance that his kidney would be compatible.
Pitts did. It was a quick conversation. Pitts thought no more of it until the Emory staff called him back several weeks later. Could he come in? In early spring, Pitts took time off work for a series of tests. “I decided I would keep going until I was eliminated [as a donor] or they told me I was a match,” he said.
Meanwhile, people who knew Brannen were praying for her, praying hard. Friends, family, members of their church: They all asked God to send a hero.
“I remember the call from Emory,” Brannen said. “They said, ‘Are you sitting down?’”
Pitts remembers his call from Emory, too.
As it turned out, he was a match. “I was thrilled. I told them I wanted to schedule the surgery as soon as possible.”
Pitts and Brannen met on May 11, eight days before the transplant. Pitts merely smiled and held out his hand. Brannen, on the verge of tears, gave him a big hug.
The operations went smoothly. The physicians removed one of Pitts’ kidneys, taking a photo of it — “I had never seen it, and I wanted to,” Pitts said — and then rushed to transplant it. The organ started working immediately.
Pitts left Emory two days after the transplant. Brannen stayed a day longer before going home. Physicians have examined both since their operations. Each is doing great.
Brannen has gone back to work at the Henry County Tax Assessor’s Office, where she is a clerk. Because of Pitts’ generosity, “I’m hoping to retire and play with my grandbabies,” she said. “It’s hard to top a gift like the one he gave me.”
Pitts said he merely followed the admonition of Jesus, who urged followers to care for others.
“I’ve always felt my faith was pretty simple,” Pitts said. “Wherever I am, that’s where my ministry is.”
What Pitts did “is a selfless act,” said his daughter, Caitlin Pitts, who nominated him as a Holiday Hero award recipient. “He’s the greatest.”
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