Abbotsford Police inspector donates kidney to department detective

WATCH: An Abbotsford police officer got a big surprise when he put out the call for a kidney donor. Jennifer Palma reports. 

VANCOUVER – Inspector Kevin Wright of the Abbotsford Police Department is set to give one of his colleagues a very important gift this week. He is donating one of his kidneys to Detective Roy McBeth, a Domestic Violence Unit investigator.

“I’m incredibly humbled and quite overwhelmed,” said McBeth of the gesture.

He has been with the department since 2004 and has faced many challenges in his job and in his role as an athlete and competitive cyclist. However, his greatest challenge was in the form of a medical diagnosis, which indicates that the degenerative kidney disease, Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD), identified in his youth, is now creating a medical emergency.

Based on his diagnosis, McBeth would likely be facing a future involving kidney failure and dialysis. PDK runs in McBeth’s family, so the potential donor pool was narrowed down to family and co-workers. With some reluctance, McBeth appealed for help in June, 2014, and that is when Wright, along with many others, stepped forward.

Wright turned out to be a match and on Wednesday, he will become a living kidney donor for McBeth.

WATCH: Detective Kevin Wright talks about his boss donating a kidney to him and Insp. Kevin Wright also discusses his meaningful gesture

Both hope their story will educate and encourage people to become involved in the Live Donor Transplant program. It only takes a minute to sign up to be an organ donor in B.C.

The two men are planning to compete in a half Ironman this summer and will be ambassadors for the Living Donor Program.

“Incredible people don’t come along every day; we are happy that so many of them work for the APD,” said the department in a release.