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INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – The recipient of a life-saving liver transplant has met the organ donor's family for the first time Saturday at the Indiana Donor Network 5K in downtown Indianapolis.
The families of Joseph Strachan and Kim Roger invited News 8 to attend the moving meeting that preceded the race, claiming it was a "miraculous" moment they had been waiting for months.
Strachan, a registered organ donor from Mooresville, died in March 2017 as a result of a car accident.
As a donor, the 22-year-old was able to give the "gift of life" to five people, doctors said.
Recipients included Kim Roger, a Greenwood woman who had been diagnosed with terminal liver disease.
"I was saved thanks to a young man who gave selflessly," she said. "I am eternally grateful."
Roger's eyes filled with tears as she kissed Strachan's parents in front of a sign honoring the 5K Mooresville High School graduate.
More than a dozen panels bearing pictures and biographies of organ donors had been arranged in the grass near the race start line.
Strachan's parents, Pat and Mark Strachan, said they "could not be more proud" of their son.
They first learned that he had been registered as an organ donor on their arrival at the hospital the night of his fatal accident and stated that he was "deadly". they were initially overwhelmed by mixed feelings.
"We realized we were losing him," his mother told News 8. "They then explained how many lives he could save. [These were] people who needed transplants to live. "
Roger and the Strachans said that they had shared their story in hopes of encouraging others to become organ donors.
More than 115,000 patients in the country are currently waiting for a vital organ transplant, said the Indiana Donor Network; nearly 1,500 are residents of Indiana.
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