A man with a genetic disease was in desperate need of a kidney—and received it from a coworker he had never met.
As reported by WMUR-9, New Hampshire man Richard Tan and his coworker, Carrie Illg, both worked at Southern New Hampshire Health, but had never crossed paths before.
That is, until nurse practitioner Illg told Tan she was going to be donating her kidney to him.
Tan was diagnosed with hereditary disease polycystic kidney disease as a young man, and in 2009, underwent a kidney transplant from a donor who had passed away and had offered their organs for donation.
That kidney allowed Tan to continue living his life—but in 2024, a doctor advised him that he needed another transplant. He had to begin “grueling” dialysis while still working full time in the medical center’s café, and hoping against hope that another donor would come his way.
What Tan didn’t know is that his future donor was already working behind the scenes to donate her own kidney to him.
In the summer of 2024, the café Tan worked at in Southern New Hampshire Health set up a drive to raise awareness of his condition in the hopes of finding him a donor. Illg signed up, passed every test that indicated she could be a match, and in January 2025, was told she had been chosen to be Tan’s donor.
Illg told WMUR-9 that she “never” hesitated when the opportunity to help a stranger arose. “I felt like I was meant to do this for him,” she said. “I felt the need to do it.”
Finding a suitable donor wasn’t the end of Tan’s medical difficulties, however, as he learned that, before he would be ready for the transplant, he would have to undergo a quadruple bypass and long recovery—but Illg waited patiently until she was able to give Tan the incredible gift.
He said it was “bittersweet” to accept the kidney from Illg, as he worried the mom of three was sacrificing part of her life for him, but “felt so fortunate to have this person show up.”
“It’s a dream come true for someone who is waiting for an organ,” Tan said. “I thought it was meant to be. Up to this day, I still feel it hard to believe.”
The National Kidney Foundation says that most living donors can live a full life after kidney donation, returning to work after a few weeks, returning to physical activity, and with a very low chance of long-term issues.
The most-common types of surgery are non-invasive, and most living donors make a full recovery four to six weeks after surgery.
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