Montefiore Medical Center. (Tomas E. Gaston)
A still-grieving Bronx man whose mom-of-three sister died on the operating table trying to donate a kidney to him said today it’s “killing me, every day” that she lost her life in an effort to save his.
“It’s just tough on me, not because I’m guilty, but I feel some guilt, because she lost her life trying to save mine — and that’s really what is killing me every day,” Roberto Medina, 39, a dad of four boys , said about his sister Yolanda Medina.
Yolanda Medina , 41, a mom of three young daughters , died after her aorta was accidentally cut during the May 23 surgery at Montefiore Medical Center , becoming the first person in Montefiore’s live-donor surgery program to die in more than four decades.
The Post today exclusively revealed the Bronx woman’s death — and the fact that Montefiore now has suspended its prestigious live-donor program while it and the state Health Department investigate the tragedy.
“They just need to find out why this happened,” insisted Roberto Medina. “We are all angry, devastated.”
He began having kidney problems two years ago, and was placed on the list of people awaiting donated kidneys.
But after suffering renal failure and being forced to begin dialysis in February, Yolanda said “that’s it” — and offered herself as the live donor, Roberto said.
“She wanted to do it. I didn’t ask her for it, nobody from the family asked her to do it,” Medina recalled. “It was very emotional, just knowing that a sister is willing to do that for me.”