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Topics: Jobs, Health, Mental Health, US News
Lucy Devine
A woman who donated her kidney to save her boss' life was later fired.
Debbie Stevens, 47, from Long Island, said she felt 'betrayed' after she was dismissed by her employer back in 2012.
“I decided to become a kidney donor to my boss, and she took my heart,’’ Debbie told The Post at the time.
“I feel very betrayed. This has been a very hurtful and horrible experience for me. She just took this gift and put it on the ground and kicked it.’’
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Legal papers revealed how Debbie first met her boss Jackie Brucia in January 2009, when she started working at Atlantic Automotive Group in Long Island.
While she left in 2010 after moving away, she later returned to Long Island and popped into the office where she learned that Brucia needed a kidney transplant.
Stevens claimed that Brucia told her that a possible donor had been located, but explained that if she needed to, she would be happy to donate one of her kidneys to her former colleague.
“Brucia... told her, ‘You never know, I may have to take you up on that offer one day,’” the papers explain.
Not long after the conversation, Stevens decided to move back to Long Island and asked Brucia if she could resume her old job.
Once she was working at the company again, Brucia called her into her office.
According to Stevens, Brucia said: "My donor was denied. Were you serious when you said that?’ I said, ‘Sure, yeah.’ She was my boss, I respected her. It’s just who I am. I didn’t want her to die."
Although Stevens wasn't a match for Brucia, doctors allowed her to donate her kidney to somebody else so that Brucia would move up the waiting list.
“I felt I was giving her life back," she said.
“My kidney ended up going to St. Louis, Missouri, and hers came from San Francisco.”
Stevens explained that following the surgery, she experienced complications and felt pressured to return to work.
One day, after leaving the office unwell, she claims that Brucia called her from home, explaining: “She... said, ‘What are you doing? Why aren’t you at work?’ I told her I didn’t feel good.
“She said, ‘You can’t come and go as you please. People are going to think you’re getting special treatment.’”
Stevens claimed that she was stripped of her office and overtime opportunities, was later demoted to a dealership 50 miles from her home and suffered with mental health issues.
"She just started treating me horribly, viciously, inhumanly after the surgery," Stevens told ABCNews.com.
"It was almost like she hired me just to get my kidney."
Her legal team later wrote a letter to the company, after which she was fired.
At the time, AAG and Brucia did not respond to requests for comment from ABC News or The Post.
However, Brucia's husband, James, told one reporter that claims were 'far from the truth' adding that she 'didn't fire anybody'.