Ford worker makes life-saving liver donation to stranger at rival automaker

In our sequence A More Perfect Union, we goal to indicate that what unites us as People is way higher than what divides us. Almost 50,000 workers walked off the job greater than two weeks in the past at America’s biggest automaker, Common Motors. It is estimated the strike has value GM greater than $1 billion. However on this installment, CBS Information transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave introduces us to 1 Ford autoworker who helped reduce the divide in Detroit with one selfless act.

After getting sick 4 years in the past, Common Motors autoworker Rick Foley discovered he wanted a life-saving liver transplant. His odds had been grim: 1 in 5 individuals in his state of affairs did not make it.

“You get actually determined…” he mentioned. “I used to be dying every single day.”

None of Foley’s relations had been a match, so Foley’s spouse, Carolyn, posted a determined plea on the Ford plant throughout city the place she works: “My husband, Rick Foley, wants a liver transplant.”

The plea caught the eye of Fredo Pacheco, who additionally labored on the Ford plant.

“Carolyn was only a co-worker. I did not know her a lot,” Pacheco mentioned. “She was a ‘hello’ and ‘bye’ pal at work. Rick, I would by no means met him. I met him the day I advised him.”

“So, ‘Hello, it is good to fulfill you. I am providing you with my liver,'” remarked CBS Information transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave.

“Mainly,” Pacheco mentioned. “They knew I used to be making an attempt, however they did not know I used to be his match but.”
 
“I knew I might assist someone,” he added. “In my coronary heart, I knew, I knew I used to be his match.”

Pacheco’s spouse Kathy took a video that captured how lengthy the hug lasted when he shared the information. “It is actually somebody taking you out to dinner, letting you already know that they are gonna save your life,” Foley mentioned. “And really, ‘that is the date that the surgical procedure goes to occur, if you happen to’re obtainable.'”

“I did not think about that there was a human, somebody on the market that was going to wish to save my life,” Foley added. “And I actually did not assume it could be a stranger.”

Pacheco, a father of 5, was an ideal match, however the pair confronted a setback: Docs mentioned Pacheco was 28 kilos too heavy for the surgical procedure. To repair that, he began figuring out earlier than and after his 10-hour in a single day shift.
 
Pacheco made his aim by one pound. However the surgical procedure nonetheless had dangers. Residing liver transplants are uncommon — just a few hundred occur within the U.S. annually — and 1 in 500 donors do not survive the surgical procedure.

“We discover these dwelling donors to be probably the most inspiring people to ever work with,” mentioned Dr. Marwan Abouljoud, who carried out a part of the profitable transplant at Detroit’s Henry Ford Hospital.
 
“He’s the fullest of human potential, Fredo,” Foley mentioned. “It is a present that I am unable to repay. However I can spend a lifetime being his pal.”

And when Pacheco purchased his personal F-150 after years of creating the automobile, he knew proper the place to drive it: to go to Foley.

“Whenever you see a person frail and understanding he will die quickly, to the place he’s now, is a tremendous present,” he mentioned. 

“Do you ever really feel the urge to remind him that it is basically a Ford half that is retaining the Chevy going?” requested Van Cleave.

“On a regular basis,” Pacheco mentioned. “We do it on a regular basis.”