CTA track worker donating life-saving kidney to colleague: 'It's just amazing'

CHICAGO (WLS) — They keep the trains running, doing a difficult job in every type of weather.

CTA track workers have each other’s backs, and in the case of two colleagues, so much more.

ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24/7. Click here to watch

Alex Gonzalez, a 40-year-old married father of two school-age daughters, learned last spring that he needed a life-saving kidney transplant.

“Disbelief,” Gonzalez said. “I kept it to myself for a while.”

But one day on the job, fellow tracker worker Lee Stark noticed something was wrong.

“I asked, ‘Hey, what’s going on? Everything OK?’ And that’s when he kind of told me, ‘No, not everything is OK. I just got diagnosed with stage-four kidney failure,” Stark said. “I asked him what his blood type was, and then I said, ‘Well I’ve got a spare kidney. You want one?'”

Gonzalez was stunned.

“He was the first person at work that I told what my situation was,” Gonzalez said. “Right away, he, no questions asked, nothing. He was like, ‘Where do I sign?'”

Weeks later, doctors at Loyola University Medical Center told Stark he was a match.

“I told him, ‘Hey, I got approved. When you want to do this?'” Stark said.

“That’s when I broke down. We both broke down,” Gonzales said.

“I think as a track department, we all kind of look out for each other, one way or another,” Stark said.

Coworkers of Gonzales and Stark are also stepping up, raising money to help both of them while they’re away from work recovering.

“I’m still lost for words. I am, I’m just speechless. It’s just, it’s amazing,” Gonzales said.

The transplant surgery is scheduled for Wednesday.

You can find the GoFundMe for Gonzales and Stark here.