There were despair-filled years after her U.S. Air Force service, unanswered applications despite a job history that should have left corporate recruiters and career counselors salivating. Deep down, Lindsay Gutierrez knew to hold tight and trust God. The disparate pieces would come together—eventually. 

When the University of Oklahoma alum finally landed a job, it led to her reading the magazine that changed her life and, more importantly, saving the lives of two strangers through organ donation. 

Gutierrez is one of roughly 300 people in the U.S. who are living dual organ donors. Her remarkable story started with the gift of a kidney to Reggie Robinson, a U.S. Army veteran, in 2022. Just two years later, she chose to donate 40 percent of her liver to an anonymous patient. 

Gutierrez’s sacrifice has drawn the best kind of attention. She has appeared in newspapers, magazines and TV shows big and small, including a November 2025 Veteran’s Day-themed meeting with Samantha Weyl, the now-public second recipient, on The Jennifer Hudson Show.  

Her 2016 OU master’s degree in human relations, Gutierrez says, started everything. It just took a while to discover what “everything” was. 

Gutierrez, who joined the Air Force in 2010, thought she would retire after 20 years before embarking upon her next career. She chipped away at an online OU master’s degree throughout a deployment in Djibouti and even after a serious military vehicle accident in 2014. Though she still lives many miles away from her hometown of Midwest City, Okla., Gutierrez says, she’s always been an “OU girl.”

 “I feel like my parents may have disowned me if had gone to OSU or, even worse, if I had gone to Texas,” Gutierrez jokes.  

Along the way, she got married, though happily-ever-after grew complicated. 

Guiterrez’s husband, Anthony, is a technical sergeant working in Air Force aircraft structural maintenance. Their military careers left little time for each other. She found continuing her work in security forces and a marriage of “hi-and-goodbye” untenable. Guiterrez chose to take an honorable discharge in 2016 at the rank of staff sergeant.

The couple moved to Georgia. Gutierrez looked for a job. And looked. And looked. Nobody wanted her, not even to handle a cash register. The doubts mounted. Am I doing something wrong? How am I not getting any callbacks? She found herself becoming uncharacteristically short with people and wondered if something else was wrong, perhaps something physiological or with her mental health. 

In 2019, the answer inched closer. Gutierrez was diagnosed and treated for a traumatic brain injury, the result of that 2014 vehicle accident. She changed course, deciding to apply for internships related to social work and policy, and was offered a full-time position handling Veterans Affairs cases for Georgia Congressman Austin Scott’s constituents. 

In early 2022, Gutierrez was reading a copy of Military Times featuring an article about living donation when she noticed an ad for Donor Outreach for Veterans, or DOVE.   

“It opened my eyes to an opportunity to continue giving, serving and helping others in a different way but still connected to the military,” she says. “It never left my heart or mind.”

Gutierrez says she “wasn’t nervous or scared” about becoming a living kidney donor. Those close to her, however, had to be convinced. “They thought from the perspective of a loving family,” Gutierrez says. “They just wanted me to be safe.” Anthony’s support came shortly after he talked with a DOVE representative.

Surgery recovery was difficult, Gutierrez admits, partially because she had no idea what to expect. It took about three weeks to feel like herself, and eight weeks to resume regular activity. 

The decision to donate again came when Gutierrez spoke with other double donors as they hiked Mount Kilimanjaro in 2023 as a fundraiser with Living Donor Adventures. More pieces lined up—she and Anthony were moving close to Maryland’s Johns Hopkins Hospital, which ultimately performed the procedure in 2024.

“There was one more thing I could do to help save a life,” she says. “It wasn’t something I wanted to abandon.” This time no one had concerns. 

Gutierrez came to realize the roads that had closed after her Air Force service weren’t a “permanent no,” but a detour on the journey to who she is now: an advocate for living organ donation.

“I didn’t know that this is what I needed to be doing,” she says. “I just knew that I wanted to help others. It has all come to fruition in being able to be an advocate. Not everyone has connections, support, resources or a voice that they’re able to use. I want to help lift people up and support them in the ways that they need, because everybody’s story matters.” 

Today, Gutierrez is pursuing a doctorate in social work. Fittingly, her focus is on equity and long-term psychosocial support for living organ donors.

She acknowledges that it’s normal to feel uneasy about becoming a living organ donor. “I did, too,” she says. “If people aren’t skeptical, more probably needs to be evaluated.”

But, Gutierrez says, experience has taught her everyone can do their part to help.

“Find something that you can give back to your community, to your family, to your friends,” she advises. “Find a way to be there for somebody in their time of need.” 

Pete Croatto is a freelance writer living in central New York.

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