If you are an organ donor or if you have donated the organs of a loved one lost too soon, you are an awesome person. Period.
No one likes to consider the possibility of dying when they are still healthy enough to have vital organs to give, but one beautiful thing about modern medicine is that the tragedy of a life ended can transform into the triumph of a life saved. And a life doesn’t even have to end to give someone a second chance with a liver or kidney donation.
Jeff Granger and Bryan and Terri Herrington have been forever linked through organ donations.
In 2004, Bryan Herrington fell from a roof and suffered a head injury from which there was no recovery. He was only 35-years-old when he died. Because Bryan was a registered organ donor, his heart, lungs, pancreas, liver, and a kidney went to four different recipients.
Jeff Granger received Bryan’s pancreas and a kidney. Over the next 15 years, Bryan’s widow, Terri, kept in touch with Jeff and his wife, Pam, as Jeff recovered and the Herringtons began to heal. The Grangers met Terri and Bryan’s sons, Drake and Payton, a year after the transplant. Knowing that a part of Bryan lived on inside of Jeff helped the Herringtons in their grief over a husband and father lost so young.
In January 2019, Jeff Granger’s transplanted kidney began to fail. He told Terri he would need a new kidney after fifteen years of having Bryan’s, but he never imagined Terri would volunteer to donate her own kidney—or that she would be a match. After delays to ensure the optimal health of both donor and recipient, Terri donated a kidney to Jeff on March 3, 2020. Both have made a full recovery.
“We didn’t become organ donor and transplant recipient; we became family through a connection of the organ donation. And it’s been that way and will stay that way.” – Terri Herrington, ambassador for UNOS
Read more about the Herringtons and Grangers: Eternally intertwined: Husband, widow donate organs to same man 16 years apart, an article by Dorothy Hagmajer.
Watch Jeff and Terri tell their story in this beautiful tribute by University of Florida Health.
More About Organ Donations in the United States:
- Learn more about Living Donor transplants
- Learn more about Deceased Donor transplants
- Review the Religious Perspectives on organ, tissue, and eye donations
- Read Facts and Myths on donations from the American Transplant Foundation
- Read about the Deceased Donation Process at the United Network for Organ Sharing
- Read Organ Donation Myths and Facts from the Health Resources & Services Administration
- Register to be an Organ Donor