An aviation training manager, Helen Wernecke spends most of her days tracking major acquisition milestones for the Navy.

In October, Wernecke marked another key milestone, not measured with databases and engineering metrics, but with grace.

The General Training department head for the Naval Aviation Training Systems Program Office (PMA-205) responded to an email in May 2007, and with the click of a mouse, triggered a chain of events that led her to donate a kidney to fellow church member Michael Pipkin.

More than five years later, Wernecke and Pipkin celebrated the journey that began with an email request from his wife. In the email, Dawn Pipkin shared that her husband, born with only one kidney, needed a transplant. She asked friends and family with type O blood to consider contacting the Washington Hospital Center to be screened as donors.

Five minutes later, Wernecke forwarded the email to her husband, Ray Wernecke, telling him she was interested in becoming a donor.

“As soon as I read [the email], I thought ‘I’m type O blood,’” Wernecke said. “‘How can I turn my back on this man without even giving it some sort of due diligence?’”

Pipkin, a lawn and garden sales representative in the Southern Maryland area, was no stranger to Wernecke. Both families are members of Trinity Lutheran Church in Great Mills, Md., and their spouses have taught Sunday school together for more than 15 years.

“I knew Mike, but not as well as I knew Dawn,” Wernecke said. “Mike used to sit directly across the aisle from me at church. When I’d get up to go for communion, he’d wink or give me some sort of greeting.”

SCREENING PROCESS

After briefly discussing the email with her husband, Wernecke called the transplant center. She completed its checklist of nearly 70 questions on everything from height and weight to blood pressure and family medical history.

After answering all the questions, Wernecke said the woman on the other end of the phone said, “Oh my God, you passed.”

Next, was a visit to the transplant center, so they could verify the information provided during the phone interview.

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