Boston assignment editor donating kidney to co-worker

An assignment editor at WBZ, CBS’s owned station in Boston, is helping out a coworker in a way that goes above and beyond — she’s donating a kidney to him.

CBS Boston photographer Jared Higginbotham has been in need of a kidney transplant for “some time,” according to the station. He has been receiving dialysis for three hours three times per week due to problems with his kidneys, and he was on the transplant list for five years. 

That’s where nightside assignment editor Andrea Courtois came in. As it happens, it was actually a story WBZ aired back in 2023 that prompted her to learn more about transplantation. 

She was watching the story of a superintendent donating a kidney to a teacher. The story happened to mention that the school leader had O blood type, which is often considered the “magic” blood type because people with it can donate blood to most other people (there are other factors that need to be considered, however, when determining if a donor and recipient are good matches).

After watching the story and while still at work, she secretly submitted an application to see if she could donate to Higginbotham. As the process moved on, she still didn’t let on that she was looking into the possibility and was eventually approved to donate to him in 2024.

However, Higginbotham suffered a health setback with his condition that meant he would have to wait at least six months to receive a kidney. Courtois had to restart the testing process but eventually got approved again — and then started to look for the perfect time to break the news. 

But there was another twist.

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Perhaps appropriate given that Higginbotham and Courtois work in a newsroom, it turns out a doctor had let Courtois’ name slip over a year before, so he had an idea of what was coming.

Once the news was out, things moved fast to set up a date for both of them to go into surgery — a procedure that’s now on the books for the week of Nov. 10, 2025. 

Courtois isn’t concerned about saying goodbye to one of her kidneys: As it happens, her father lives with only one kidney after one was removed due to a tumor.

“This is more than a medical match — it’s a story of friendship, selflessness, and the kind of quiet heroism that often goes unseen,” said Johnny Green, regional president
and general manager for CBS Boston and CBS New York, in a statement. 

For more details about being a living kidney donor, please visit the American Kidney Fund.