A couple from California are celebrating the greatest gift they can imagine Christmas – a healthy baby, thanks to the kindness of an organ donor who lives thousands of miles away.
Young parents Chad and Aileen Cooper came face to face with Michael Speck through Zoom, reports CBS News Chris Martinez during their first emotional meeting with the selfless stranger.
“There are no words to describe how grateful we are to you Michael, you saved our son’s life,” Aileen Cooper said during the video call.
“It’s my honor,” Speck said to her.
Speck had donated part of his liver to 10-month-old Jacob Cooper. Jacob was born with biliary atresia, a rare disease of the liver and bile ducts that can be fatal.
“Your son is born with a problem, and then someone from all over the country you have never met shows up to save his life,” said Father Chad Cooper.
Dr. Yuri Genyk, who works at the children’s hospital in Los Angeles where Jacob was operated on, said the baby needed a liver transplant to survive.
“He was getting sicker,” said Genyk. “He was hospitalized with an infection prior to the transplant, he was seriously ill.”
Jacob’s father immediately volunteered to be a donor, but testing revealed his own diagnosis.
“In the CT scan and MRI, we found a mass near your pelvis, and this should be seen right away,” he recalled the doctors telling him.
Since Chad and Aileen Cooper were both unsuitable donors, the doctors began the search for another living donor – which they found weeks later, nearly 3,000 miles away in Ohio.
The donor was 64-year-old Michael Speck.
Speck is both a father and grandfather and had been an organ donor after giving a kidney to a pastor years earlier.
“The surgeon told me it was a ten-month-old baby,” said Speck. “When I discovered that, I burst into tears.”
In October – in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic – Speck traveled to Los Angeles for the transplant. It was a big success.
Speck now hopes others will follow his lead.
“There are so many people who can do the same thing as I do,” he said.
Speck said to Chad and Aileen Cooper op Zoom, “To be able to donate to a child … it’s a miracle.”
Aileen and Chad told Speck he was the miracle.
“It’s all worth seeing you,” he replied.
And in November, Jacob’s father Chad Cooper underwent surgery to remove his mass, a benign tumor. Both he and his son are doing well.