An organ donor saved her life. Now she’s marrying his brother.
Noah Waters was around 6 when he first met 3-year-old Brooklyn Dotson at her home in Kentucky. Her family invited his family over to say thank you for saving Brooklyn’s life. Decades later, the tiny girl who received his brother’s liver would become his wife.
In 2003, 3-year-old Brooklyn Dotson received a liver transplant that saved her life after she was born with a genetic condition called Alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency. The transplant came from Noah Waters, who was 6 at the time. Noah's older brother, Michael, had died a few years earlier in a car accident, but had expressed his desire to donate his organs if anything happened to him.
After Michael's death, his mother, Tina Poteet, learned that Brooklyn needed a liver transplant and reached out to Life Connection of Ohio to find out more about the recipient. Brooklyn and her mom began meeting with the Waters family from Ohio, and the two families developed a close friendship. When Brooklyn was in high school, she had another surgery related to her liver and Noah drove from Ohio to Cincinnati Children's Hospital to be by her side.
The two remained friends and later became close romantic partners. Noah, now 27, proposed to Brooklyn on Christmas Eve, and they plan to marry this month in a backyard wedding attended by over 100 people. Brooklyn's health has been good since her transplant, and she still attends regular check-ins with her doctors. Michael Waters' story has inspired Noah to encourage others to consider organ donation, as many of Michael's organs were donated to help others, including the man who received Michael's heart, Freddy Perez.
Written by urgent.news from IOL's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
