A mother in Los Angeles took the search for her daughter's kidney into her own hands after waiting for years - writing "DAUGHTER NEEDS KIDNEY TYPE O KIDNEY4JENNA@GMAIL.COM"on the back of her Chevy Tahoe. Karol Franks has not found a kidney yet, but the mother has since received slew of responses.
Karol's daughter, Jenna, was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 14. She is 29 now, but has been using dialysis daily ever since. Jenna Franks told NBC News "My life pretty much revolves around my illness." The same appears for her mother who has spent most of her time online in an organ search group on Facebook. That is where she got the idea to advertise her desperate plea on the back of her vehicle.
When speaking to TODAY, Karol said, ""I didn't know how it would work for those in small towns, but we live in Los Angeles with thousands of people on the road, so we figured we'd give it a shot." Karol picked up paint from Wal-Mart and wrote the message on her and her husband's car. She also sprawled a similar message, swapping daughter for sister, on her son's car. She says once she hit the road, she immediately received responses.
"It seems like every time we get on the freeway we get responses from people," Karol told TODAY.
She recounts after taking a day trip to Orange County, she received an email from a man who was in the process of donating a kidney, but wrote if it does not work out with that patient, Jenna could have his.
Jenna's brother, Johnny Franks said when sitting at a red light on his way to work, a man approached him. The man apologized for not being able to donate a kidney, but advised he still wished to help. He handed Johnny $40.
Twitter user, Tatum Bateman, spotted the car in Santa Monica last weekend and tweeted the photo with the caption, "This honestly needs to go viral." The tweet has since been retweeted over 9,000 times and favorited more than 4,000 times.
To date, 25 people have stepped forward to see if they are a possible match.