'I told you I'd get emotional': Colorado kidney donor meets recipient for first time

AURORA, Colo. — A man in New Jersey needed a kidney transplant . A man in Colorado answered the call. But for more than three years after the transplant surgery, they never met — until this week, when Ed Silberman flew to Denver and shared an emotional face-to-face conversation with Dave Heal about their experience as an organ donor and recipient.

It all started back in 2019 with a social media post. Silberman, an avid softball player with otherwise good health, learned his kidney functions were deteriorating and he would need to use peritoneal dialysis until he could get a transplant. His son-in-law, Jeremy Garson, tweeted at a sports blog seeking a donor.But Heal, who happened to follow the blog and had studied at the same university as Silberman’s son-in-law, saw the post.

While donors giving an organ to a stranger don’t typically talk with the recipient, Heal stayed in touch with some of Silberman’s family members throughout the process. "There are 100,000 people in the United States on the kidney transplant list, and every day, seven people die waiting for a kidney,” Silberman said."My parents are hematologists,” Heal said."I’m used to thinking about giving little bits of your body so other people can have a transfusion or live a better life.

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