Hats Off: Third Grade Teacher Donates Her Kidney To Her School’s Custodian
Jeff & Aimee are giving a Hats Off to an awesome third-grade teacher!
Patrick Mertens’ life changed forever in 2018 when doctors told him his kidneys were failing and needed a transplant, according to The Washington Post. When the dialysis treatments were getting tough Mertens didn’t lose hope.
Mertens has type O negative blood type, so finding a donor would not be easy. However, his life started to get back on the right track after his daughter Kayla decided to put up a Facebook post asking others for help.
Erin Durga, a third-grade teacher at Kimball Elementary School in Kimball, Minn., saw that Facebook post and decided to help. Both Durga and Mertens befriended each other the same year they first started at Kimball Elementary. Durga is a teacher and Mertens is a custodian.
She decided to do something remarkable for Mertens.
“I felt in my heart, from the very beginning, that this was my thing,” said Durga, in a statement. “Once I decided that, yes, I’m going to donate to Pat, I felt really good about it, and I was at peace with it throughout the entire thing.”
The Mertens family were absolutely overjoyed after finding out the two were a match.
“Who expects a teacher to give their kidney to a custodian?” said Mertens’s wife, Lynda, in a statement.
Before the surgery, Durga asked hospital staff if she could speak with Mertens in person. After reviewing its COVID-19 protocols hospital staff approved the request.
Durga assured Mertens that everything will be alright before the surgery. Thankfully, the surgery was a success!
“I told Erin, when I first woke up out of surgery, it was nothing I’ve ever felt before,” said Mertens, in a statement. “It was a new life.”
Mertens has recovered from the surgery and is back doing the things he loves like spending time with his family, driving his red Ram truck and deer hunt.
“She’s our miracle, our angel,” said Lynda Mertens, in a statement.“We’ll forever be grateful for her.”
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