A Maryland woman is backing a bill aimed at increasing the number of living organ donors.
Lindsay Gutierrez before being released from Hopkins Hospital after undergoing a liver transplant in April. (Courtesy of Lindsay Gutierrez)
Courtesy Lindsay Gutierrez
Lindsay Gutierrez and her husband, Anthony, stand at the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro on World Kidney Day 2023. (Courtesy of Lindsay Gutierrez)
Courtesy Lindsay Gutierrez
Lindsay Gutierrez recovers after undergoing kidney transplant surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City in 2022. (Courtesy of Lindsay Gutierrez)
Courtesy Lindsay Gutierrez
Lindsay Gutierrez during Air Force basic training. (Courtesy of Lindsay Gutierrez)
Courtesy Lindsay Gutierrez
A Maryland woman is backing a bill aimed at increasing the number of living organ donors.
Lindsey Gutierrez, an Oklahoma native, served in the U.S. Air Force National Guard from 2010 to 2016. She and her husband served in England and Georgia before relocating to Maryland to work for the Department of Defense. They currently reside in Ellicott City.
After earning her Master's in Social Work, Lindsay realized she wanted to give back to others in a big way, and after discovering that her blood type is O, the most common type, she decided to become an organ donor.
“It feels great,” she said. “I knew I wanted to continue to serve outside of the uniform, and this was another way I could continue to do that.”
In 2022, Lindsay donated a kidney to a fellow veteran in New York. Two years later, in April 2024, she also donated her liver to an anonymous recipient at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore.
Lindsay said she met the man who received her kidney and that it became a life-changing relationship, and she hopes to one day meet someone who has received her liver.
The donation made her a double altruistic organ donor, a living organ donor who gave two organs to strangers. Gutierrez said at the time of her donation, she was one of fewer than 200 such donors worldwide.
Currently, she is sponsoring a bill that would give kidney donors a $50,000 tax break, called the “Ending Kidney Death Act.”
“There is a shortage of living donors so this bill is being brought into law to provide another avenue and incentive for people to come forward,” she said.
Eliminate kidney disease deaths Act This is a 10-year pilot program designed to offer living kidney donors who donate a kidney to a stranger a refundable tax credit of $10,000 per year for five years, totaling $50,000 in the credit.
The kidneys will be donated to people who are longest on the kidney transplant waiting list.
The bill's authors said the lifespan of a cadaveric kidney is half that of a live kidney.
“I don't think people really understand how important this is to the life-saving care of people on the transplant list.”
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