A man rushed to hospital for a kidney transplant has spoken of the dilemma he faced after learning the donor organ could be infected with HIV . Tony Gartside had waited four years for a donor organ before he finally got the call to say a kidney and pancreas had become available . The transplant window was so small that after putting the phone down at 3am , he was rushed from his home in Plymouth to Oxford for the operation . But upon arriving , he was told that the organs had come from the victim of a drugs overdose - and it would be two weeks before tests revealed if they were HIV free . Tony Gartside , 40 , had waited four years for a donor organ before he finally got the call to say a kidney had become available . But he faced a dilemma after learning the donor organ could be infected with HIV . Mr Gartside , 40 , was born with type 1 diabetes , and his kidneys began to fail by the time he was 32 . He said : 'They showed me into a room and told me the donor organs had come from a death by drug overdose and asked if I still wanted to go ahead . 'Because the person died by drug overdose , they would n't know whether the donor had HIV for two weeks . 'It was a scary process having to say yes or no after sitting in the back of an ambulance for hours . ' I thought : `` Do I risk it and say yes , or do I say no and wait another 18 months , or even longer ? '' 'In the end , I went ahead with it . ' The kidney transplant surgery took 10 hours and left Mr Gartside with 32 staples in his stomach . After the surgery , he was sick for days , unable to even stand up straight , and was concerned about the risk of HIV . Two weeks later the HIV results came back - and were , to his relief , negative . He has since made a full recovery . Mr Gartside said : 'My diabetes has completely changed - it 's amazing - and even that does n't describe how good I feel . 'It 's a second chance and I will be forever grateful to the donor 's parents for making that decision . ' Two weeks after the kidney transplant , the HIV results came back - and were negative . He has now set up a support group for transplant patients - the Mayflower Support Group - which supports patients going through the transplant procedure . He explained : 'Doctors have the clinical experience and can tell you what 's going to happen during surgery , but they do n't have a realistic explanation of what is going to happen for the patient . 'It 's good to have someone to talk to who has been through what they 're about to go through . 'The transplant has made me feel like I really want to give something back . ' Last year , two patients in Wales died after being given kidney transplants infected with a parasitic worm . Darren Hughes , 42 , and Robert 'Jim ' Stuart , 67 , were each given a kidney from a transplant donor who was carrying the deadly worm in his organs when he died . Doctors were not aware the donor had the worm - known as Halicephalobus , which lives in soil and is found in horses - when the transplant operations were carried out at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff . Mr Stuart and Mr Hughes began to 'deteriorate rapidly ' after their surgery and died less than three weeks later . The two men are part of only five cases ever recorded across the world - and all have died from the worm infection . Mr Stuart , of Cardiff , and Mr Hughes , of Bridgend , had kidney transplants in November 2013 but both died before Christmas . A post-mortem examination revealed they both died from infection called Meningeoencephaltis which was caused by the parasitic worm .
GartsideTony Gartside , 40 , had waited 4 years for a donor kidney and pancreas . Eventually got a call to say there was one available and rushed to hospital . There , doctors informed him the donor had died from a drug overdose . HIV test results would take 2 weeks , while transplant had to be immediate . Mr Tony Gartside decided to take the gamble and accept the infected organs . Has since been told the donor did not have HIV .