Man Says He'd 'Rather Die of Kidney Failure Than Get Vaccine'

A Virginia man who needs a kidney transplant to survive said he would "rather die" of kidney failure than get vaccinated against COVID.

Shamgar Connors, 42, said in the description of a video he uploaded on YouTube earlier this month that he is on dialysis every night and his life is at risk, but the University of Virginia Health System has denied him a transplant procedure because he refuses to get the COVID vaccine.

Patients across the country have had the same experience as Connors, as some hospitals have been denying transplants to unvaccinated people, saying that patients who have been vaccinated have better outcomes and lower death rates than unvaccinated patients.

Connors, who said he has stage 5 kidney failure, can be heard in the video having a phone conversation with an unnamed staff member from the hospital's transplant clinic who told him that he has been placed on the "inactive" transplant list, which means he will not be considered for a transplant because he is not vaccinated against COVID.

The 42-year-old said he doesn't want to get the vaccine because he is concerned about any potential side effects from it.

During the phone conversation, the hospital staff member asked Connors if he is willing to get the COVID vaccine in order to be "active" on the transplant list, to which he responded, "I'd rather die of kidney failure."

"I can respect people's choice to be able to CHOOSE to get some experimental drug if they want, but MANDATING this is absolute insanity and anyone that supports these mandates is absolutely completely insane," Connors wrote in the YouTube video description.

"I even told the doctor I recently had COVID and got over it so why would I need a vaxx now? Oh that's because I might have had the Delta variant and now they are worried about Omicron," he added.

Connors also said that he tried to claim a religious exemption to avoid getting vaccinated, and said that the hospital didn't "honor that." That claim is supported in the audio of the phone call as the hospital representative can be heard telling Connors the clinic will not consider a religious exemption.

"If this won't wake people up to this scam, I don't know what will," Connors wrote.

The middle school teacher said in an interview with Inside Edition that he insists on not taking the vaccine regardless of "what anyone says. I'm not doing it."

Connors has two children and is married to a nurse who also opposes COVID vaccines, according to Inside Edition. He said that he is "fighting this battle not just for myself, but for everyone, even the people who disagree with me. Because what they don't understand is today it's me, tomorrow it's you."

"Patients may not be a candidate for a transplant if they have another life-threatening disease or condition that would not improve with a transplant," the spokesperson said in the statement, according to the news outlet. "Transplant patients who have been immunized have better outcomes and lower mortality rates than those transplant patients who have not received the vaccine."

Similar incidents where individuals have been denied transplants for being unvaccinated have been reported nationwide as hospitals in the U.S. require a full vaccination against COVID before a procedure.

In Boston, a man has been removed from the heart transplant list for rejecting the COVID vaccine. David Ferguson said his 31-year-old son DJ is no longer eligible for the transplant due to the hospital vaccine mandate.

"It's kind of against his basic principles; he doesn't believe in it," Ferguson told WBZ earlier this week. "It's a policy they are enforcing and so because he won't get the shot, they took him off the list of a heart transplant."

Also in Ohio, a mother was denied a liver transplant late last year for refusing to get vaccinated. Michelle Vitullo, who has stage 4 liver cancer, had her transplant surgery scheduled for the end of September, but the Cleveland Clinic canceled the surgery over the vaccine mandate.