NC Man Refuses To Take COVID-19 Vaccine So He Can Have Life-Saving Kidney Transplant

NORTH CAROLINA — A Burke County man will not get the COVID-19 vaccine even if it means he will die, because it's a requirement to get a kidney transplant he desperately needs.

"I was born free, I will die free," Chad Carswell told Charlotte television affiliate WSOC.

Carswell, a U.S. Air Force veteran, is afflicted with multiple health conditions and is a double-amputee. He says his kidneys are functioning at about 4 percent, making his need for a transplant dire.

He went through the process at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist in Winston-Salem in an effort to get a transplant, but stopped in his tracks when he was told a COVID-19 vaccine was a requirement to get an organ transplant.

“You have a choice for your life. I have a choice for mine," Carswell told the Hickory Daily Record.

He says he supports the choice of getting the vaccine, but not any mandate to do so.

Atrium released a statement explaining their policy, saying in part, "the reason it is recommended is to provide protection for the patient. Transplant patients are at high risk for severe illness if they don’t have pre-existing immunity prior to being transplanted. We understand that some patients may not wish to be vaccinated. In this case, patients can opt to be evaluated at another transplant center.”

Carswell told The Record he is looking for a health facility to provide a transplant that does not require the COVID-19 vaccine to receive one.

He also says people have volunteered to give him a kidney, but volunteering is not an exception to the hospital's policy that mandates a recipient get vaccinated.

He explained to WSOC that doctors and nurses have spoken to him about the vaccine and why they believe he should be vaccinated, but that he will not change his mind.

More than 80 percent of those eligible have been vaccinated with at least one shot in North Carolina, and more than half of those eligible are fully vaccinated according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

More information on the COVID-19 vaccine — including its safety, efficacy and who is eligible — is available at vaccines.gov.