Having lost his dad when he was only a year old, Deandre’s role model was his best friend’s father. “I saw him go to work every day as a corrections officer, come home and spend time with his family, which luckily included me,” Deandre recalls. “That’s who I wanted to be, a reliable and hardworking family man.”
After high school, Deandre worked at Home Depot, where he rose to the position of a manager over seven years. But the retail business wasn’t for him, and he remembered his best friend’s dad – the corrections officer. He joined the Florida Department of Corrections.
After two years, he moved over to the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office, where he’s been for the past seven years. Last year, he was assigned to Vero Beach Elementary School as a school resource officer.
Deandre’s medical problems began in 2020, when he started having bad headaches. He tried to tough it out, but while on duty one night, it was so bad that he had the jail’s nurse check his blood pressure, which was sky high. It was so high she told him to get to the hospital.
The doctors said his kidney might have been damaged by the high blood pressure, so they put him on medication. In April 2024, Deandre ran out of the medication because of an insurance mix-up. His blood pressure spiked again and he ended up in the hospital.
Earlier this year, he picked up a virus that was circulating in his school, and he ended up in the hospital again. He had kidney issues and now he goes for dialysis three times a week, while he waits for a much-needed new kidney.
Deandre misses having the time and the energy to do things with his family – his wife, two boys and two girls. A new kidney will enable him to get back to coaching his son’s traveling baseball team, riding side-by-sides with his boys in off-road mud-fests, and mentoring the young people at school in his job as a School Resource Officer.
Do you want to help Deandre? Please share the link to Deandre’s story or reach out to Kidneys for Communities at info@kidneysforcommunities.org to learn more about how you can help. The Kidneys for Communities team is here to answer your questions.
