Disabled Woman Dies While Awaiting Second Chance At Kidney Transplant

NPR Kansas City Public Media | Joseph Shapiro


At Misty Cargill's funeral, the minister called her an advocate for other people with intellectual disabilities. She was — although a reluctant one.

Cargill became an advocate when NPR did a story about her fight to get a life-saving kidney transplant. Misty, 30, died in her sleep on Saturday. She was on a list to get that transplant when she died.

In 2006, at the time of the NPR story, the transplant center closest to her, Oklahoma University Medical Center in Oklahoma City, turned her down, saying a woman with a mild intellectual disability did not have the mental competency to make an informed decision to choose a transplant.

"Lurking below the surface is the more likely reason for denial: Someone determines that people with intellectual disabilities are inferior, human beings of lesser value, the last priority," wrote Tim Shriver, chairman of the Special Olympics, in an op-ed in the Washington Post on Christmas Day. "They're put last in line because they're thought not to matter quite as much as other people. For Misty Cargill, like another vulnerable person who is being celebrated today all over the world, there is no bed available. And for Cargill, being turned away may well cost her life."

Shriver was one of many listeners who heard the NPR story and was outraged. Officials at a hospital in Galveston, Texas, offered to put her on their transplant list.

Read more: http://www.kcur.org/post/disabled-woman-dies-while-awaiting-second-chance-kidney-transplant

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