WOMAN SAVED BY BOY’S LIVER DONATION MARRIES HIS BROTHER

A Kentucky woman whose life was saved by a 10-year-old’s liver donation has married the donor’s brother. Brooklyn Dotson and Noah Waters are now husband and wife.

Dotson, 24, and Waters tied the knot on September 26, 2026, in a lakeside ceremony near Lake Cumberland in Kentucky, PEOPLE reported. The wedding had 110 guests.

“Fate brought us together,” Dotson told PEOPLE.

Dotson was diagnosed with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, a rare genetic disorder that damages organs. Her family was told she had three days to live without a transplant, the New York Post reported.

The liver came from Michael Waters, Noah’s older brother. Michael was 10 when he died after being struck by a car in Clayton, Ohio.

He had told his father he wanted to donate his organs if anything happened to him, and his parents honored that wish. The transplant took place at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital on December 30, 2003.

“It was Michael’s gift,” his father told the Seattle Times.

Michael’s heart, kidneys and lungs were among the organs donated, the Seattle Times reported. Life Connection of Ohio helped link his family with the recipients, and the two families connected after the surgery.

Dotson and Noah met as small children and were friends long before anything romantic. They began dating in May 2025, and Noah proposed on Christmas Eve after dinner, PEOPLE reported.

Freddy Perez, the man who received Michael’s heart, was at the wedding. “I feel incredibly blessed to have been given another opportunity to live years beyond what I would have without Michael’s courageous and selfless decision to become an organ donor,” Perez said in a statement.

Noah told PEOPLE he cried through the whole day. “I was crying all day,” he said.