Officer John Kuhn's Heroic Kidney Donation

Officer John Kuhn from the Cape Coral Police Department takes us on a heartfelt journey through his nearly two decades of service, culminating in an extraordinary act of kindness. Officer Kuhn works in the Community Service Bureau's COPS unit, and his efforts not only span addressing quality of life issues and aiding the homeless, but also organizing impactful community events like the Special Olympics fundraiser and toy drives. But Officer Kuhn is stepping beyond his duties to donate a kidney to a long-time friend. His story is a testament to the power of personal sacrifice and community support.

We talk about the City of Cape Coral's generous organ donor policy, which will allow Officer Kuhn to have the leave time he needs to recover from the procedure, and encourages others to consider organ donation. Through Officer Kuhn's inspiring tale, we aim to motivate our listeners to take meaningful actions within their own communities.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:04

Welcome back to the Cape Copcast, the official podcast for the Cape Coral Police Department. I'm one of your hosts, Lisa Greenberg.

Speaker 2 0:11

And I'm Officer Mercedes Simons. Together we make up the Public Affairs Office. Today we have an awesome guest. We have. Officer John Kuhn.

Speaker 1 0:19

Yeah, tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, once again, I'm John.

Speaker 3 0:23

Kuhn, I'm in the Community Service Bureau for the Cape Coral Police Department. Been here since January of 2005. So nearly 20 years Wow.

Speaker 1 0:29

I had no idea you'd been here this long 20 years, wow. So where did you start?

Speaker 3 0:35

Initially I did patrol, like you know, like everybody, and I did that for probably a year and a half, two years, and then I went to SRO. I was in schools for about three years. Then I came back to patrol and did that for I don't know, 11, 10 years.

Speaker 2 0:50

Patrol's the best.

Speaker 1 0:51

I love patrol, that's what everyone's saying Every guest we've had, that's kind of moved on. They're always like oh, I love patrol.

Speaker 3 0:57

There's pros and cons to everything, but yeah, there's a lot of good pros to patrol patrol, yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 1:01

So then, after patrol, you ended up in CSB, or was there more between that?

Speaker 3 1:10

Well, I did a year on the desk also, but then went back to patrol Patrol's kind of where I go back to a lot. And then I've been on CSB for community service bureau for about two, two and a half years now.

Speaker 1 1:16

Awesome, it seems like a good fit.

Speaker 3 1:19

No, I enjoy this. This is the point of my career that I think it's a fit and I enjoy it.

Speaker 2 1:23

So you're not just in the Community Services Bureau, though You're in the COPS unit. Do you want to tell us what all you guys do with that?

Speaker 3 1:30

Yeah, so inside the Community Services Bureau you have your school resource officers and then you have our COP unit, which is Community Learning and Policing. One of my main functions there is I work with the homeless, the Housing Outreach Treatment Team, so I do all the homeless and I make sure there's a lot of resources available for those that want it, try to pull them into connection with the services that are available. So there really is a lot. A lot of them just aren't aware of it. And then also I do a quality of life issue, so there's ongoing dispute between neighbors. We do a lot of presentations at like daycare and schools. We do a fundraising for Special Olympics and other charities. We do the Harry Chapman food drive coming up in November, and then we do Shop with a Cop, the toy drives for the boat and everything in December. So all kinds of different things Before school starts. We do the backpack drive, basically anything community oriented. So I do enjoy it.

Speaker 2 2:14

Yeah, we're definitely coming into the busy season, so those are just some of the events that we have coming up that we're really excited about, but you're usually at almost all of them, so I'm sure people will see you around and hopefully they recognize you from the podcast and come say hi.

Speaker 1 2:29

I know, of course, say hi. You're very hands-on when it comes to your involvement with the community.

Speaker 3 2:34

I appreciate that I enjoy the position. I really do like it, so I try to do my best.

Speaker 1 2:40

Obviously, you're here for multiple reasons. You're a great cop, You're good at what you do, but there was something kind of special that I learned about yesterday when we were chatting with the chief and it's funny because he didn't even brag on himself at all. Someone had to bring it to our attention that this was something you were doing. You're doing something pretty special for someone you know. Tell us about it.

Speaker 3 3:02

Well, I'm going through a process of donating a kidney to a friend of mine. I've known him about 10, 15 years. He has young kids he has five children With family and work responsibilities. We don't really keep in touch as much as we used to, but one day I guess it was just meant to be I was on my Facebook, which I'm not on there very often, and then the one and I saw his uh post and which his never popped up at the time, but he was discussing how he'd been in dialysis for five years.

Speaker 3 3:30

Was he kept a secret? Um, because his personal issues and I guess he was told basically that he needed to find a kidney. So he was very emotional and in the post and somebody else in the comments asked what blood type he was and it was the same blood type as me, um, so I contacted him and it's a long process. You know they do your kidney functions. Make sure you have two functioning kidneys. They don't want you to give away the only good one and then you not have one or donate one that's not functioning and then, yeah, so after about eight months or so, we're almost there.

Speaker 1 3:58

Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 3:59

So do you get like time off work for doing this? Straight to the important questions.

Speaker 3 4:07

Well, initially I really didn't want a lot of people knowing, but my sergeant's aware of it because I had to request times off for the days that I had to go down to Miami for testing and procedures and stuff. So he happened to bring up to our chief, sizemore, and Sizemore made us aware that the city, to encourage donation, does have a policy in place where you get a large amount of hours to encourage you to take off, so you're not using your own time, which is very grateful to see this opportunity for me. I was going to do it regardless, but it makes it great that it has to come from my vacation time for the family and stuff.

Speaker 2 4:38

It's kind of funny. There was already like a policy in place for someone who donates an organ in the city, that person walked so you could fly.

Speaker 1 4:46

Yes, the chief was saying that there is someone within the city who donated an organ to someone else and so they created that policy after her. He did that because he wanted to make sure that, you know, that person was taken care of when it came to hours away from work and didn't have to use their own personal hours, and it works perfectly for Officer Kuhn now. It's also funny that he's like yeah, I didn't really want people knowing, and then we somehow roped him into doing this podcast.

Speaker 3 5:12

So I am in the community service bureau, so you know I do my part for the community and ours is a great department and we have a great city to have a program of this in place. So I got to do my part to, uh, help build the community and build the department.

Speaker 2 5:26

Yeah, that's also a really selfless act, so that shows a lot about who you are Most people like Lisa. Lisa and I were talking earlier and we're like I don't know about you, but like I I would probably only do that for like a family member or maybe like a very close friend.

Speaker 1 5:40

Right, like I love Mercedes, I don't, I don't know. Would I give you my kidney. I would think about it. I would really have to think about that one.

Speaker 3 5:50

I think if you were actually in a position you would. And it is one of those things where you got to make a decision what you feel you're comfortable with going down the road with. But one thing I learned, which is really great, about donating kidney. I'm sure it's probably the same for other organs If you do donate a kidney and then obviously you only have one, now if that one starts to have complications you kind of get moved to the top of the list. So it definitely is incentive to donate, knowing that not that you don't, but if you do have an issue down the road then they'll take care of you because you took care of someone else.

Speaker 1 6:19

That's great, because you know that would make me feel better anyway, because you know, now you're walking around with one kidney after this procedure and if something God forbid were to go wrong, you know, did you hesitate on this decision at all? Or was this something where you were just like no, I'm going to do it?

Speaker 3 6:34

I always felt, once I saw the video, that I had to do the process. If it didn't work, it didn't work. But if it worked I felt like I had to do it, like I don't have. There's not much choice to it. If it lined up, then, then you do it.

Speaker 1 6:47

Wow, I'm sure that this friend of yours is extremely grateful.

Speaker 3 6:50

He is. He's a great guy, so yeah.

Speaker 2 6:52

Yeah, if you weren't uncle Q, and before your uncle Q and now Absolutely, I think that takes you to favorite uncle status.

Speaker 1 6:58

Honestly, you're saving his life. That's incredible. Did you like ever consider organ donation before, or is this kind of the first thing that brought your attention to it?

Speaker 3 7:08

I'm a licensed organ donor but during my living process I guess I never really thought about it or looked into it. But I do donate blood and other things like that. But I've never been opposed to it, but I just never really felt the motivation to make that decision.

Speaker 1 7:22

Yeah, for sure. Now you're called to it and you're answering the call, huh.

Speaker 3 7:26

Yeah, I just feel like it's the right thing to do. That's awesome.

Speaker 2 7:30

You're great. I'm going to stay off Facebook. I want to keep all my organs.

Speaker 3 7:36

No, it's just how things work out sometimes. I guess the city obviously had this great program in place which I was unaware of, and then the Facebook algorithm found me.

Speaker 1 7:45

Yeah, the algorithm knew your blood type.

Speaker 3 7:47

It did, I guess, yeah, I guess this worked out. That's awesome.

Speaker 1 7:51

Is there anything else you want to add?

Speaker 3 7:53

No, just if anyone has the opportunity to help a family friend. I definitely encourage you. I think it's something worthwhile doing. And then I just want to thank the city and the department for all the support and, obviously, the policy they put in place to encourage this kind of behavior to help our fellow citizens.

Speaker 1 8:09

You're amazing. Thank you so much for coming on here and taking something that I know you wanted to keep private and talking about it openly on a podcast. We appreciate you coming on and joining us.

Speaker 3 8:20

I appreciate it. Thank you very much.