Emotional meeting takes place for kidney donor and man whose life she saved

FIVE YEARS after she gave her kidney to a stranger, a kindhearted donor has met the man whose life she saved, and both broke down in tears.

Teresa Dobson, 62, had not considered donating a kidney until she heard on the radio it was possible and thought to herself, “I think I could do that for somebody”.

“I have good health and I had two kidneys and I only needed one of them,” she said.

“So I thought why not give one to somebody else to help give them a better life, and maybe save their life.”

That person was Joe Salvatore, who she finally met this week after the pair exchanged anonymous letters for years.

“We’ve got on really well,” Mrs Dobson said after their emotional first meeting.

“And we’ve certainly got something in common.”

Mr Salvatore, from New Malden in Surrey, said his “life has changed” since the transplant and he was feeling stronger.

“Everybody says how much better I look. I feel better. I feel fitter,” he said.

The 70-year-old said it has also allowed him to continue his training in martial arts, which is his passion and keeps him fit.

“Teresa’s made my life a whole new life again and I’m able to enjoy my life with my family, with my group of friends,” he said after the meeting.

“What a wonderful person Teresa is, and people like her, who can actually donate to somebody they don’t even know.”

Mrs Dobson, from Kettering in Northamptonshire, played down her donation, which was organised through the charity Give a Kidney.

Mr Salvatore’s wife and daughter had both initially offered their kidneys for the urgently-needed transplant, but doctors found that neither of the family members were suitable.

His daughter Carmel Dalby did however donate her kidney to another stranger in a four-way altruistic donor chain to help her father receive one.