Parents hear their deceased son’s transplanted heart in the chest of the man who received it

Matthew Shetterly died at the age of 23 from an overdose in 2014.

His parents, Michael and Barbara Shetterly, of Essex, Maryland, United States, made a decision that would change another life: they donated his heart and liver. On the other side, Erv Basdon was waiting, a man carrying a silent guilt for remaining alive thanks to the death of a young man he had never met.

Two years passed before the Shetterlys gathered the courage to look for him. When they finally met, Michael and Barbara placed the stethoscope on Erv’s chest and heard their son’s heart beating strongly once again. That was when Erv understood that the sacrifice had not been in vain.