Fire Capt. Dale Beauchamp said he and his wife were at a loss for words when the doctors told him a few months ago that he needed a new liver. He'd been battling liver disease for over two years and his liver was only getting worse.
However on Feb. 6, his luck changed.
“I didn’t realize how sick I was before I went in and had the operation,” Beauchamp said during an interview at the Comstock Township Fire and Rescue station. “Now it’s like I feel like a whole different person. I feel a lot better.”
That day, fellow firefighter Lt. Doug McLiechey donated part of his liver to Beauchamp. They underwent a day-long surgery at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Doug went in first at 6:30 a.m.
“The way it works, they go in with the donor and they get you cut open and make sure everything is good like it was in their initial assessments,” said McLiechey, who went through several tests before the big surgery. “Once that’s good, then they bring the recipient in.”