Eight months after his wife died waiting for a transplant, he joins her ... Husband gives life to three

[Financial News] “Organ donation isn’t something you can do just because you want to, but my father seized that opportunity and went to be with my mother. He was a father through and through, right to the end.”
The son said this of his father, who died eight months after his wife passed away.
The Korea Organ Donation Agency announced on the 12th that Lee Cheong-ryong, 68, donated his liver and both kidneys through brain-dead organ donation at Bundang Seoul National University Hospital on the 8th of last month, saving three lives before he passed away.
On September 23, Mr. Lee was taken to the hospital after falling at home and showing unusual symptoms. He was diagnosed with a traumatic brain hemorrhage and treated in the intensive care unit, but his condition worsened and he was ultimately declared brain-dead.
The children decided to donate, remembering their father’s usual character and their mother, who died while waiting for a lung transplant. Mr. Lee’s wife was diagnosed with interstitial lung disease in 2011, and as her condition worsened in 2021, she registered as a lung transplant candidate. But she never received a transplant and died in February this year.
Just as his son Seung-seon was about to leave home after hearing that his mother had died, he received a call from the hospital she had attended saying that a donor had become available. It was news they had waited a long time for, but his mother had already passed away. “I was heartbroken for a long time, thinking that if my mother had lived just one or two hours longer, she might at least have been able to undergo transplant surgery,” Seung-seon said. “Because I understand better than anyone how patients waiting for transplants and their families feel, donating was the right thing for my father to do.”
Mr. Lee, who had two sons and a daughter, was a devoted family man who worked at the same workplace for nearly 30 years and continued working as a building security guard after reaching retirement age. For a man who knew only home and work, outings and meals out with his family were his greatest joys, and he loved having a glass of liquor with the food his wife prepared.
Mr. Lee cherished his wife deeply and stayed by her side, personally making sure she had meals when illness made it difficult for her to go out. After she died, he quit his job and struggled so much with her absence that he began eating less.
The children remember Mr. Lee as a father who could never pass by someone in need. His daughter Mi-seon recalled, “Dad was known among his friends and those around him as ‘a man who could live without the law.’ He was a kind person who remembered which foods the family had said were delicious and often brought them home for us.”
Seung-seon said he was proud of his father for giving three people a new lease on life, and added that he had recently registered his own wish to donate, carrying on his father’s wishes. He bid his father a final farewell: “I’ll take good care of my younger siblings and raise your grandchildren well. Be happy with Mom. I love you, and thank you.”
Director Lee Sam-yeol said, “I am grateful to the bereaved family for deciding to donate, mindful of the deep longing of patients waiting for transplants and their families. I hope the spirit of giving the gift of life shown by Lee Cheong-ryong and his family will be widely shared throughout our society.”



[email protected] Jung Myeong-jin, medical correspondent Reporter