WEST PALM BEACH, FLA. (WSVN) - A Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office deputy showed one of the grandest gestures of kindness after she donated a kidney to one of her coworkers.
Heidi Grob, a 911 dispatcher, is back at home and doing well thanks to her coworker PBSO deputy airport K-9 handler Michele Shaffer. Grob had been hospitalized to undergo surgery in Miami, to receive a kidney from Shaffer.
“It’s a perfect kidney. She gave me the perfect kidney,” Grob said.
Grob’s kidneys were damaged after she underwent cancer treatment when she was 11 years old. Grob says, in the past year, her condition grew worse, getting closer to needing a new kidney and dialysis.
Grob looked to her own family for a donation, but they were all ruled out as matches. She then looked to her PBSO family, where 35 volunteers stepped forward before she found Shaffer.
“When I walked in Tuesday morning, the first time I got to see her, that I could get up and walk, totally different,” Shaffer said. “The skin color was back to normal, a smile on her face and just wouldn’t stop talking — back to Heidi.”
Grob said she is incredibly grateful for Shaffer. “I don’t have the words to thank her, but it’s all in my heart. It’s in my family’s heart,” Grob said.
“I mean, every time I see her, give her within two minutes, she starts crying,” said Shaffer of Grob.
Both women are still out of work for a few more weeks, as they recover, but both are doing well.
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