Man gets kidney from Facebook friend

NEW YORK – Two grade-school friends from New York City who reconnected online are recovering after one gave the other a kidney. Recipient Ricardo Manier called donor Karl Celestin’s gift “a lifeline.”

The 21-year-old Manier has been hospitalized repeatedly with a kidney-scarring disease since he was 5. The illness forced him to put his premedical studies on hold last June.

The two were classmates at Holy Family School in Queens. They reconnected last year through the social networking Web site Facebook.