Tinder Match Turns Into Organ Donor Match For Long Island Natives

When most people sign up for Tinder, they probably expect to find a date or a quick hook-up. What they don't expect to find is an organ donor -- but that's exactly what one Long Island native found.

Alana Duran, 27, who originally grew up in Southold, needed a new kidney after being diagnosed at age 12 with Lupus, an autoimmune disease that causes the body's immune system attacks its own tissues and organs.

Little did she know that her girlfriend, 24-year-old Lori Interlicchio, a West Islip native she met through Tinder would become her savior.

In 2015, after dating for about 3 or 4 months, Interlicchio asked if she could get tested to see if she was a match, and discovered she was.

"I was so excited and surprised," Duran told Patch. "I wasn't expecting it at all. It was quite a shock but a good one!"

After Interlicchio found out she was a match, she told Duran in a reveal video that went viral.

"I was extremely surprised and I felt so relieved that I was finally going to get a kidney," she said.

The news definitely came as a shock to Duran, who didn't expect Interlicchio to be a match.

"I knew that [Lori] was interested in donating a kidney but I hadn't had the best luck in the past," she said. "I was prepared to hear that she wasn't a match."

The surgery, which took place in February 2016 was a success but not without some struggles afterwards.

"Looking back I think the most difficult parts of the process was seeing Lori in pain after surgery, and not being able to hug family members because of the immunosuppressants I was on, it would have been very easy for me to get sick," Duran said.

But the two made it through, and now the couple is living happily in Michigan. Interlicchio is currently finishing up her second year of law school at the University of Michigan and Duran is working as a research assistant at a neuroscience lab at the university as well.

Duran still has to take medication and hope that her body doesn't reject the kidney, but other than that the two are pretty much just living a normal life -- even adopting a 3-month-old puppy named Calpurnia.

The story didn't end there. After the viral video, the production company reached out to the couple were to ask them be featured in a documentary called "Bean."

"The documentary was not supposed to be a documentary at all! We were emailed by Gigantic! Productions based out of NYC, they wanted to film a true life episode for MTV," Duran said. "Once we filmed and they put together a few bits to present to MTV, MTV wasn't interested so the production company decided to make it into a documentary and submit to film festivals."

The hour-long film, which recently aired on Fuse, starts off with Duran opening a gift from Interlicchio and at the bottom, it showed a photo of the classic Tinder "It's a Match" screen with both of their photos. Except this time she meant a different kind of match.

The next scene shows an emotional Duran burst into tears.

Watch the full documentary below:

To celebrate the airing of the documentary, the couple threw a screening party for their friends at the law school.

"It honestly feels a little weird watching the documentary because it's strange watching yourself on a screen like, do i really look and sound like that and that's our story they are telling," Duran said. "With that being said I think they did a fantastic job telling our story and everyone we worked with at the production company is another family to Lori and I. We grew rather close with them!"

Now that all is said and done, looking back Duran offers this advice to anyone going through a similar situation: "if you have questions even if they seem silly, ask them! Knowing exactly what's going to happen during surgery is good too. Just relax, everything will be okay, just trust the process."

In addition, she encourages everyone to sign up to be an organ donor.

"If you have an iPhone you can do it through my medical ID. NY state is the state with the least amount of people signed up to be organ donors out of all 50 states," she said. "As New Yorkers we can do better. Don't feel like being a organ donor, you can still help by donating blood."

Image: Screenshot/Fuse video