A teenager who sold his kidney in order to buy an iPhone has likely been left bedridden for life after suffering renal deficiency.
Wang Shangkun was 17 years old when he decided to sell the vital organ on the black market in exchange for roughly the equivalent of $3,200.
The teenager wanted to buy an iPad 2, but didn’t have enough money to afford the device. While he was on the internet one day he received a message from an organ harvester in an online chatroom, who told him he could get 20,000 yuan ($3,000) for selling the organ.
Recalling the situation to China Network Television, per Vice, Shangkun said that he underwent illegal surgery in the central Hunan province to have his right kidney removed and delivered to an unknown recipient.
At the time, he asked: ‘Why do I need a second kidney?’, and following the sale he used the money to buy an iPad 2 and an iPhone 4.
When he returned home with his new devices, Shangkun’s mother grew suspicious and forced him to confess what he’d done. After details of the trade emerged, nine people involved in the operation were arrested, five of who have since been charged with intentional injury and organ trading.
Shangkun, who is now in his mid-twenties, later developed an infection in his remaining kidney which is thought to have been caused by the unsanitary location of the operation and the lack of post-operative care he was given.
He suffered renal deficiency, and his condition is so severe that he’s been rendered bedridden. Shangkun now has to undergo dialysis every day to clear his blood of the toxins that his remaining kidney can no longer handle.
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