Heidi Riccio said she made the donation to Dave Collins because it was 'the right thing to do.'
DANVERS, Mass. – When a Massachusetts teacher needed a kidney to stay alive, the superintendent of the school donated one of hers.After decades of living with kidney disease, Dave Collins was in end-stage renal failure and needed every-other-day dialysis to stay alive.
“Because I’m a bricklayer. I’m a mason. And I’d be up working with the kids, laying bricks and I’d have to sit down. I couldn’t even pick my head up,” he said.“It broke me to see him in the pain, on being unable to live the life I know he was capable of living,” she said. The perfect match came as a total surprise. Dave and Shelby Collins’ boss, the superintendent of Essex Tech, decided to make the sacrifice.“And my parents always taught me to do what is right, not what is easy,” she said.“Yeah, she said, ‘Pack your bags.” I go, ‘What?’ She goes, ‘Yeah, we’re going to Mass General together,” Dave Collins said. “I go, ‘You’re kidding me.’ I said, ‘I don’t believe it til it’s time.’ And it was time.”“The living donor program at Mass General is the best.
Dave Collins isn’t even taking the rest of the school year off. He’s planning to be back in the classroom after a vacation in April.
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