Savannah woman and her furniture salesman bonded for life after life-saving surgery

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - Have you ever thought about just how you make friends?

One day you just find someone and decide to talk to them, over and over again. It’s not always with people you expect. For Dayna Cohen, making friends was never a difficult thing.

“My friend from New York always says that everywhere I go, I come out having a best friend,” said Cohen. “So when I called her after making friends with Jake, she said ‘of course.’”

Jake Rowland.

Her furniture salesman.

“I just so happened to be at the front of the store when she walked in… it is cool to have met that way.. it was fate," said Rowland.

The two became fast friends, bonding over the Empire State.

“Jake told me he was planning on going to New York, and I talk too much so I was telling him, you have to try the bagels, the pizza, and the baked clams, all that,” said Cohen.

The two left the transaction friends on Facebook, and kept up on social media.

Six months after that first meeting, Cohan’s health took a turn for the worse. April 2022, she was told her kidneys were failing and she would need to be put on a transplant list. Cohan said she knew the numbers of that list and thought, there was no way she would find someone.

According to the National Transplant Database, almost 90,000 people are waiting and hoping for a kidney.

But she started dialysis, hopeful.

“I started a website, and Facebook, started my search,” said Cohen.

Months went by and everyone that tested, came back ineligible.

“You hit rock bottom, there were days where I would cry saying nobody loves me, nobody cares, nobody is going to get tested,” said Cohen.

Little did she know, Jake, her once furniture salesman, turned friend was getting tested.

“She was telling me about her medical issues at one of our lunches, and I think that was when the seed was planted,” said Rowland.

Weeks later he was visiting New York, the very place that she and Cohen had first connected on.

“I saw a post that she was still looking, and that day I knew I was going to start the process,” said Rowland.

After weeks of testing, the results came back, just like that day in the furniture store, it was a perfect match.

“I still to this day think like ‘you really did this for me,’” said Cohen, unable to grasp Rowland’s reasoning.

“I have just always believed that if you are able to help someone, you should,” replied Rowland.

The two just celebrated their six months post-op, and are currently planning a trip back to Dayna’s hometown so she can introduce her friends and family to the salesman who saved her life.

“I didn’t just get a kidney, I gained a family in the process,” said Cohen.

To find out more about being a kidney donor, click here.