En esta noticia
Becca Bundy donated a kidney to Bill Cox, a Minnesota volunteer firefighter who had helped save her one-year-old daughter during a medical emergency.
The transplant gave him five more years of life. But in 2024, seven years after their story began, Bill died from complications following an unrelated surgery. Despite the loss, the bond between their families lives on.
The firefighter who came to her daughter’s rescue
Two years before the donation, Bundy called 911 when her daughter, Hadley, suffered a seizure at just one year old. Bill Cox was among the first responders who arrived at her home and helped during the emergency.
Bundy remembered that Cox seemed genuinely concerned about her daughter, rather than treating the incident as just another call. She never forgot the firefighter who had been there for her family.
Their paths crossed again in the fall of 2018, when Bundy spotted Cox tending bar. He was wearing a T-shirt asking for a kidney donor because he was suffering from end-stage kidney failure.
“I couldn’t get it out of my head,” Bundy recalled. She felt she could finally thank the man who had helped her daughter.
A kidney donation that gave him five more years
Bundy volunteered to be tested and discovered that she was a compatible donor. The transplant took place in February 2019 at the University of Minnesota Medical Center.
After the surgery, Cox no longer needed dialysis and was able to resume his retirement with his wife, Terry. Before the operation, he had carved a wooden angel for Bundy as a gesture of gratitude.
The donation also brought the two families closer. Cox and his wife began attending softball games at the school where Bundy coached, while drawings by Bundy’s children became part of the Coxes’ home.
For Bundy, the experience created a bond she believed would last a lifetime. Cox’s wife later said the donated kidney gave him five great years.
Seven years later, their bond remains
Cox died in 2024 after suffering complications from a surgery unrelated to his kidney transplant. His death marked a heartbreaking chapter in a story that had begun with a mother’s desperate call for help and grown into an extraordinary act of generosity.
But the connection between the families did not end with his passing. Terry Cox remains close to Bundy and her family, continuing to attend the girls’ games.
“I’m so glad we’ve had that relationship and have been able to keep that going,” Terry said. “They’re a wonderful family.”
There is also good news about Hadley, the little girl Cox helped when she was one year old. She is now a healthy sixth grader and no longer suffers from seizures.