Richard Tan works at Southern New Hampshire Health, a medical center in New Hampshire. A coworker there turned out to be his kidney match. Before that came years of kidney disease. He has polycystic kidney disease, a condition that runs in families, and it was diagnosed when he was a young man. In 2009 he received a kidney from a donor who had died.
In 2024 a doctor told him he needed a second transplant. He started dialysis and kept working full time in the medical center’s café.
That summer the café held a drive to raise awareness of his condition. Carrie Illg, a nurse practitioner at the same health system, signed up to be tested. Tan and Illg did not know each other.
Illg passed the tests, and she was his kidney match.
Newsweek reports that Tan had major surgery before the transplant and a long recovery, and that Illg waited until he was ready. In January 2025 she was told she had been chosen as his donor. Neither report gives the date of the operation.
Tan has said it was bittersweet to accept the kidney. He worried that Illg, a mother of three, was giving up part of her life for him. He also said, “It’s a dream come true for someone who is waiting for an organ,” and that he “felt so fortunate to have this person show up.”
“I felt like I was meant to do this for him.” Carrie Illg, nurse practitioner
After the donation and recovery, both of them went back to work at Southern New Hampshire Health. In April 2026 Tan appeared on the WMUR program Heart of NH to thank Illg.
The part worth noticing
Tan did not have to find a stranger on his own. The need was said out loud in a café where he already worked, and a woman down the hall heard it, got tested and became his kidney match.
We told a different kidney story in September, about a man who gave one to a stranger after seeing a Facebook post. The people and the places are different. In both, somebody needed something only another person could give, and the need was put where the right person could see it.
Where this story comes from
Originally reported by Newsweek (Rachael O’Connor), published April 10, 2026, drawing on WMUR-9 in New Hampshire. Also confirmed by Southern New Hampshire Health, April 20, 2026. Retold here with the details as those reports give them. The people in this story are not connected to MeetaNeed.
