These Newlyweds Win The Award For Strangest How-We-Met Story

Despite the overwhelming power that dating apps seem to have over our love lives these days, plenty of couples still begin their relationships after an IRL meet-cute. But Heather Krueger and Chris Dempsey may have the best how-we-met story of all time. Krueger and Dempsey's love story begins simply enough: he worked with her cousin at an Illinois code-enforcement office. One day, Dempsey overheard his coworker talking about Krueger, who, at the time, was suffering from stage IV liver disease and in need of a transplant. Dempsey immediately felt a sense of moral obligation. "I spent four years in the Marine Corps and learned there never to run away from anything," he explained to CBS. "So I just said to myself, Hey, if I can help, I’m going to help." Determined to save this complete stranger, he got tested to see if his liver might be a match — and it turned out he was eligible. "I called her up and told her, 'I'm going to be your donor; let's do this,''' he recounted to Today. Krueger and her mom were so happy, they cried. Then, in what will go down in history as the strangest, most dramatic, and basically most awesome first date, ever, they met to talk about everything over lunch. He picked up the tab. As if that weren't enough, he and his motorcycle club raised money for Krueger's hospital bills. A subsequent date of sorts took place at the University of Illinois Hospital on the day of the surgeries. This is known as a living donor transplant, during which the donor and the recipient have surgery at the same time: surgeons remove a portion of the donor's liver and immediately transplant it into the recipient. As with all surgeries, there are large risks to both the donor (such as infection, blood loss, and liver complications) and the recipient (such as organ rejection). But Dempsey and Krueger's operations were successful. So successful, in fact, that there were many more dates to come. "I realized how kind of a person, how special, how selfless and different he is,'' Krueger told Today following their engagement last December. And this month, a year-and-a-half after the procedure that brought them together, they got married. Now that is a story for the kids and grandkids to tell for generations.