A Georgia Nurse “adopted” a homeless man so he could get a heart transplant.
Jonathan Pinkard desperately needed a heart transplant.
But Pinkard was homeless, and he did not have a support system to help care for him after a transplant — and that disqualified him from the waiting list for a new heart.
Pinkard is 27. He’s been living in a men’s shelter and working as an office clerk in Warm Springs, Georgia and admits he had no idea what he was going to do.
Then in December — four months after he learned he needed a new heart — Pinkard landed in the hospital again, but this time he was assigned to nurse Lori Wood. He was her patient for two days at Piedmont Newnan Hospital when she figured out what was going on and stunned him with a remarkable offer: He could move in with her. She could become his guardian and look after him.
Wood has been a nurse for 35 years. She said she had never done anything like this before. She generally doesn’t blur the lines between her personal life and her professional work at the hospital. But something about Pinkard was different. He didn’t have anybody in the world looking out for him — and that was standing between him and a new heart.
She told the Washington Post, “At some point, God places people in situations in your life, and you have a choice to do something about it. For me, there was no choice. I’m a nurse; I had an extra room. It was not something I struggled with. He had to come home with me.”
Pinkard underwent a successful seven-hour heart transplant on Aug. 1 and is expected to be cleared to return to work soon.