Driver delivers kidney despite being stuck in North Dakota blizzard

Right before Christmas, a snow storm blocked roads across the state of North Dakota. But one stranded driver was determined to keep going.

Operator: “9-1-1. What is your emergency?

Lucas Baker: “I’m stuck on the road. I’m getting a kidney transplant at Sanford Medical and I’m stuck on a detour on the road right now. I’m trying to figure out how I can help here.”

Those were the words of LifeSource driver Lucas Baker as he raced against the clock to deliver a kidney to Sanford Bismarck.

Baker: “It’s about 12 o’clock at the organ, and we’re at about seven o’clock.”

“Wait wait wait”

Waiting for delivery after driving on bad roads himself, Jerry Bernal of Williston, North Dakota.

“50 mph wind, blizzard. I couldn’t see, it was so cloudy,” Bernal said. “I was sitting in the hospital all the time, just sitting, waiting, waiting, waiting. And then they said, “Oh, something happened to your kidney.”

Bernal had stage 5 kidney failure and knew he needed a transplant for about eight months. A kidney in Rapid City, South Dakota, arrived on December 22, but the roads were so bad that the organ was flown to Minneapolis. That’s when Baker took over.

“The trip from Minneapolis to Fargo wasn’t all that bad. But between Fargo and Bismarck…” Baker said.

He got to Jamestown before I-94 closed, so he took country roads north and then west. That’s when he got stuck in a skid and called 911.

“Basically, I couldn’t even open the door. The wind was blowing so hard,” Baker said.

heroic efforts

Mercedes Holzworth was the deputy sheriff that day. She helped unload Baker’s SUV before a tow truck could get it back on the road.

“I knew that further west from where Lucas was, the snowdrifts were very high and blocked the whole road, so I wasn’t even sure he could do it,” Holzworth said.

But he did it. Even the director of the Sanford Bismarck transplant program considers Baker a hero.

“What’s amazing about it is number one: the driver risked his life to come here and number two: selflessness,” said Nadeem Koleylat, MD. “He did a great job for the patient, for us, I mean for humanity, because it’s not easy to risk one’s life to save another.”

Baker humbly declined the praise.

“Obviously we have a choice not to travel in these conditions, but I know that under these circumstances, when I go from Minneapolis to Bismarck, I am kind of at the end of the road because I have a chance to get this organ. So there really is no question. I jumped out of bed and drove off. So it is,” Baker said.

However, at the end of Baker’s long journey, there was Jerry Bernal speaking directly to the people who dug up Baker’s car and to the man who drove through some of the worst winter conditions imaginable to deliver a new kidney.

“I truly thank you all deeply for giving me a second chance at life. Because my family needs me,” Bernal said. “I just wish I could just hug you all, give you a big hug and say thank you to everyone for putting your life on the line. And the driver, he was great because you didn’t have to, but I thank you. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.”

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