Man who walked thousands of miles to find a kidney for wife finally gets a match

Pensioner Wayne Winters had spent weeks roaming the streets near his home in a desperate bid to find a donor

A man who walked for miles each day in a bid to find his wife a kidney has been rewarded after she finally received a match.

Wayne Winters, 74, wore a sandwich board for weeks as he wandered around his home town of Farr West, Utah, in the hope of finding someone to donate an organ to his wife, Deanna, who has stage five kidney failure.

It read: “Need Kidney A- 4 Wife”, along with a phone number for people to contact.

On the back, it said: “1,000 kidneys needed in Utah/Idaho.”

After many miles, a match has now been found for Ms Winters, almost two years after she was diagnosed with the illness.

The couple, who have been married for 26 years, received the long-awaited call over the weekend.

“I was just so overwhelmed," Mr Winters told the Fox13 news channel. "I didn’t know what to think.”

The kidney was donated by someone who had died and Ms Winters is now recovering from the transplant operation in hospital.

“If she can have a good five years that would be awesome,” Mr Winters said. “I have my wife back,”

He had previously spoken of feeling helpless watching Deanne suffer.

“I didn't know what to do,” he said last month “I felt like I needed to do something. After I get a kidney I will have my wife back the way she was: normal, helping people, loving people. She likes to serve other people.”

Mr Winters received hundreds of calls after his story went viral.

Asked how many people had been in touch to offer help, he said: “Between 700 and 800 - it filled my phone up. I’m sitting here with this full phone.”

Despite the good news, the 74-year-old is not planning to put away his sandwich board any time soon.

“I will spend more of my days walking with my sign to see how many I can get”, he said. “Think about it, we could start a kidney revolution, and that would be so great."