Michigan Man Donates Kidney to Former Student

Ron Mercier used to give Amy McCloud hall passes in school and advice on the softball field. Now he’s given her a kidney.

Mercier, 68, who was McCloud’s coach and senior class advisor at Milan High School, ran into the woman’s father and stepmother last year.

He learned that McCloud, 35, was spending four hours a day, three days a week on a dialysis machine as she waited for a kidney transplant. Relatives who had offered to help McCloud either weren’t compatible or were excluded because of medical history.

Mercier remembered McCloud, who was diagnosed with diabetes at 15, as a bubbly and bright student who often helped in his classroom. It pained him to learn she had been on a transplant waiting list for more than a year, so he asked what was required in a donor.

It turned out the special-education teacher had the O-positive blood needed, and the transplant was performed Wednesday.

McCloud was stunned by Mercier’s generosity.

“I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me, giving a body part to someone not related to you,’ ” she said before the operation. “It’s overwhelming. How can you ever thank them enough?”

McCloud was in good condition Saturday at the University of Michigan Medical Center. Mercier has been discharged.