Thousands of miles from his place of birth, Laois is now home to Nick Hines and the teacher has shared his life-saving heart transplant story to encourage organ donation in Ireland.

Clonaslee resident Nick Hines delivered his emotional appeal in Dublin at the launch of Organ Donor Awareness Week 2025, which runs from May 10 to May 17.

Nick, who hails from the US, lives with his wife Tracey and their 14-year-old daughter Molly. Working as a secondary school teacher, Mr Hines moved to Ireland from Minnesota in 2000 and met Tracey on his first teaching placement. 

"Time is funny, 22 years seems plenty in some respects, but when you are told your time is up it seems like a
flash," Mr Hines said. 

"Growing up in Minnesota I was always active, winter skating and playing ice hockey and in the summer swimming and playing baseball and basketball. As I grew older, moved to Ireland and started a family I did not slow down continuing basketball, hiking and running. MORE BELOW PICTURE.

Pictured at the launch of Organ Donor Awareness Week 2025 was Heart transplant recipient Nick Hines, from Clonaslee, Co Laois with his daughter Molly (14). Picture: Conor McCabe Photography.

"In February 2020, seemingly out of nowhere, I had a mild stroke that brought me into hospital, where a number of tests uncovered heart failure," he said.

"I was treated with medicine and had a defibrillator fitted as a backstop. Within the year of getting my ICD I had a major ventricular fibrillation and dropped off of my chair at the dinner table on a Sunday afternoon in front of my wife and daughter, there was zero warning or indication that this was coming.

"The thing is, my heart failure was asymptomatic, inwardly its function was in decline while outwardly to me and the world I was fine.  My other systems were in overdrive compensating and adapting to the low output from my heart. Living with the knowledge that at any moment you can leave it all without warning impacted me and my family immensely," he said.

The teacher explained that he lived the following three years with the knowledge that the ‘rug’ could be pulled at a moment’s notice. MORE BELOW PICTURE.

Pictured: Nick Hines. Photo by Conor McCabe Photography.

"Each night I would assess my day in detail while trying to sleep and consider the implications of my not waking up. You have a bad day, have an argument, forget to do something or tell someone something there is a fear that settles over you as you try to sleep; ‘please let me get another day, not tonight.’ Then you wake up and the scramble begins to make it a good one.

"Thoughts of the future or even next month disappears. One’s relationship with time is completely altered. The inspirational phrase – live each day like your last takes its toll on all aspects of life when it is your reality," he said.

Three years after his stroke, in September of 2023, Mr Hines was putting out his bins before school when he found that he could no longer move or breathe.

"I had ‘gone off the cliff’ as one doctor put it. I remember thinking, this is it. I got to A&E that morning where it was decided that I could no longer live with my native heart, transplantation was the only hope.

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 "I was referred to the Mater and called after a week for an assessment and they deemed me ready for a workup to check my eligibility for receipt of a heart."

The Laois teacher shared that while they tested him for eligibility, more problems and issues were uncovered.

"The plan was get listed and go back to work and life and be called when a suitable donor came along," he said.

"As I was my eligibility was in question, I began to consider returning home to be with my loved ones before I would die."

However, Mr Hines' doctors planned and implemented a strategy to treat his heart aggressively enough that he could get on the list and stay on the list, and the plan worked.

"I remained in CCU Mater with the finest of care until an offer came. It did, I was woken up by my coordinator and told I had a donor, later the surgeon arrived and asked me, do you know what is happening? I said I did, but in reality, I had no idea
what this would mean for me and my family," Mr Hines explained.

Pictured: An emotional Mr Hines receives a standing ovation for his fantastic speech

"I have now passed a year with my transplant; I am not just alive, I am living.

"The expanse of time the thought of tomorrow and the wonder of how my children will continue on in this world is an emotion that I can now conceive; the concerns, the joys and the hopes are things I can share in now in a real way," he said.

The Clonaslee man maintains that this new lease of life is thanks to the dedication of over 300 professionals.

"I have tried to calculate the volume of contributors; nurses, carers, dietitians, cleaners, psychologists, doctors, surgeons, physios, secretaries and coordinators, numbering in excess of over 300 professionals who had such compassion and dedication to their work my recollections of the process of transplantation are positive in the main," he said.

"None of it means anything however, without one person’s selfless act. My donor and their family.

"Now when I have a bad day I thank my donor and family that I will have the time to heal it, and when the day is good I thank my donor and family for the joy," he concluded.

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With over 600 people currently on transplant waiting lists for organs including the heart, lung, liver, kidney, and pancreas, and over 500 of these waiting for a kidney transplant alone, the need for a national conversation about organ donation has never been more urgent. 

Organised by the Irish Kidney Association (IKA) with support from the HSE’s Organ Donation Transplant Ireland (ODTI) office, Orgain Donation Week aims to shine a spotlight on the life-changing impact of organ donation for transplantation and the role that families play in ensuring that your wishes are carried out.

The IKA outlines ways to support organ donation as follows:

• Don’t Leave Your Loved Ones in Doubt. Talk to them. Share your wishes about organ donation. Say it, Share it, Save a Life.
• Request an Organ Donor Card from the Irish Kidney Association website www.ika.ie/donorweek/
• Tick the box YES for organ donation when applying for, or renewing, your driving licence represented by Code 115
• Follow the Irish Kidney Association’s activities on social media, show your support and share the messaging with your own network: X @IrishKidneyAs Instagram @IrishKidneyA, Facebook @IrishKidneyAssociation, LinkedIn
  irishkidneyassociation  Social media hashtags: #LeaveNoDoubt #ShareYourWishes #DonorWeek25

www.ika.ie/donorweek/