BOSTON ‒ Tim Andrews was so close to death, he was ready to risk what little life he might have left.
"I'm gonna die anyways, why wouldn't I do something for all these [other people with kidney disease] that are suffering?"
The first-ever successful organ transplant took place in 1954, just a few miles from where Andrews received his own.
More than 100,000 Americans now sit on an organ transplant list, and most of them are waiting for a kidney.
Only about three in 1,000 people die in a way that allows them to donate an organ like a kidney, lungs or heart.
The science is getting better, enabling more organs to be used from patients who die older, sicker or further from a hospital.
He got to throw out the first pitch at the Red Sox's Fenway Park when he had the pig kidney. »