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Retired Sheriff’s Deputy Doing Well After Stranger’s Kidney Donation Saves His Life

A retired Escambia County Sheriff’s Office deputy’s prayers for a kidney donor have been answered.

NorthEscambia.com first told you about Rudy Brown in June 2024 as he humbly asked for help to find a kidney.

That story led to a stranger, Doyle Carpenter, finding out that he is the perfect match for Rudy. The successful transplant was on Monday.

“Good is good,” Brown said Tuesday. “Kidney is working overtime. It removed 12 liters of fluid in the first 12 hours after surgery; it started working immediately after the transplant. Thank you again Doyle.”

Rudy joined the ECSO in December 1989 and spent 24 years on patrol in Escambia County. He retired due to his medical condition in 2013 and underwent a liver transplant in 2018.

“I pretty much bled out two times on the table,” he said. “It nearly killed me.”

The required anti-rejection medications caused his kidneys to fail just over year later. He’s in final stages of kidney failure and has been on the transplant list since October 2020, but his number never came up as he stayed on dialysis.

A donor like Doyle was his only option to live.

“I was immediately drawn to his story,” said Doyle, an anesthesia technician at Ascension Sacred Heart Pensacola. “As a former EMT, his situation struck a chord with me, especially after all his years of service.”

“I felt like it was something I was called to do,” Doyle said. “I took a compatibility test and learned we were a perfect match.”

Finding a perfect kidney match with a stranger is extremely rare, with the odds estimated to be around 1 in 100,000. So is becoming an altruistic donor, with only 300 to 400 Americans each year choosing to donate a kidney to someone they don’t know.

Rudy said many people at his church were tested but were not suitable candidates.

“When Doyle told me he was going to get tested, I appreciated it but didn’t expect much to come of it,” he said. “But when he called back saying he was a match and still wanted to donate, I saw the Lord’s fingerprints all over this miracle.”

“Rudy smiled so much; it made me so happy,” Doyle said.

“This was God’s plan,” he said.

“God is indeed good,” Rudy said Tuesday.

Pictured: Doyle Carpenter (left) and Rudy Brown (right). Photos for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.