A former New York news anchor in need of a liver got a life-changing phone call this week thanks to a longtime viewer.
Amy McGorry, 56, had been searching for a living liver donor after years of battling two chronic autoimmune diseases. The breakthrough came when the viewer, moved by the coverage of her story, stepped forward – and turned out to be a perfect match.
“A true angel,” McGorry said about her donor in a video she posted on Instagram.
The donor, a woman not related to McGorry, has chosen to remain anonymous. She underwent extensive testing before doctors at Weill Cornell Medicine confirmed she was a match and that she could donate. The surgery is scheduled for June.
McGorry, who lives in Sea Cliff, said she got the call while teaching a health sciences class at Long Island University in Brookville.
“I broke down and cried,” she told Newsday. “I couldn’t believe someone would come forward and do this for me … I walked back into my health sciences class and they all clapped.”
McGorry, who is a former News12 anchor and now contributes to NewsdayTV, has spent decades in journalism.
Since college, she has been battling autoimmune hepatitis, later compounded by primary biliary cholangitis – a progressive disease that damages the bile ducts and liver.
Her condition worsened significantly over the past year and reached a critical point when she was hospitalized six months ago. Doctors told her in February that she needed a new liver.
But because of long wait times for deceased donor organs, doctors said her best chance was finding a living donor – someone healthy enough to donate a portion of their liver, which can regenerate in both donor and recipient.
McGorry asked her followers and the public for help in an emotional video posted to Instagram on March 11. Local media outlets helped spread the word and the possibility became reality after a loyal News 12 viewer saw coverage of McGorry’s condition and came forward.
“The fact that there are good people willing to help out a stranger makes you feel good about humanity,” she told Greater Long Island. “It gives you hope.”
Now preparing for the procedure, McGorry said she is focused on building her strength ahead of the surgery and the weeks-long recovery expected to follow.
McGorry has also become an advocate for transplant patients, traveling to Washington, D.C., earlier this year to support the Living Donor Protection Act, which aims to expand job protections for organ donors.
Her surgery is scheduled for June.
